


Magia

by MidoriKurenaiYume



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Arguing, Betaed, Car Accidents, Character Death, Darkness, Death, Death Threats, Developing Relationship, Dialogue, Dialogue Heavy, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Getting to Know Each Other, Heavy Angst, Internal Conflict, Kidnapping, Language, Lesbian Sex, Love Confessions, Multi, Murder, Mystery, Oral Sex, Reflection, Repressed Memories, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 76,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9078775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidoriKurenaiYume/pseuds/MidoriKurenaiYume
Summary: When special agent Arturia accepted the mission to take out the dangerous organization known as 'Holy Grail', she knew she had to succeed, because failure would cost her her life and countless others. But as the mission included getting close to members of said organization, success could cost just as much…





	1. Surely destroy one dream of this world that hurries to its ruin (Lancer)

**Author's Note:**

> A brief but important warning... As you can probably guess from the tags, this story is going to be very dark (except for most of the first chapter, which is basically an info-dump). It will feature explicit sexual situations (hetero and lesbian sex), descriptions of death scenes and will generally go into not-so-happy territory. Many parts are not in need of warnings, but as there are darker scenes, I recommend to turn away now if you'd like to avoid them. Romance will be there, but I will probably focus more on the characters' morality.  
> Updates will not be very frequent.
> 
> Title: from a dark and amazing Kalafina song, which I thought would suit this fic's mood (it's their 9th single and part of the album 'After Eden'). The chapter's titles are lyrics from the song Magia; credit for the translation goes to the lovely canta-per-me.net forum.  
> Heartfelt thanks to MimiBlue for doing the beta work!!

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“You really thought we wouldn’t find out, didn’t you?”

Even though he felt dread filling him, the black-haired man kept his tone as calm as usual.

“What are you implying, Ryuunosuke?”

A bone-chilling laugh resonated throughout the room. Diarmuid turned around abruptly, only to find himself face to face with the man he had tried to take down earlier.

“Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. One of the top agents this country has to offer in an effort to try to destroy us. But that isn’t the name that made you famous, right? You’re one of us Seven.” He grinned, his expression feral. “You’re _Lancer_.”

Diarmuid did not dare utter a word. His cover had been blown far sooner than he had expected, and he had failed to take out even one of the underground bosses. His chances of escaping were slim, if not non-existent, _at best_.

Doing all he could to keep his expression composed, he tried to unnoticeably slide his arm behind his back. If he was going to die, at least he was going to take those two down with him.

But his eyes widened in horror when he didn’t feel his long, spear-shaped dagger nor his hidden gun.

Ryuunosuke smirked lazily.

“Looking for these, _Lancer_?”

Frozen with shock, Diarmuid realized Ryuunosuke was holding his weapons, his eyes expressing a crazy triumph. The man next to him extended a hand, and Ryuunosuke frowned for a second before handing him over the spear-like dagger.

The large-eyed man raised his long fingers, flexing the dagger.

“Isn’t it custom that whenever one of us is killed, the killer gets his title?” He smiled. “Yet among the few ways to break that cursed tradition, there is the condition of being murdered by another of the Seven. And you know who I am, don’t you, _Lancer_?”

Diarmuid was not a fool. He could see that it was over. He had no chance of defending himself, he knew perfectly how deadly those two people were. His end had come.

But if that was the case, he was going to face it head on.

“You are Caster,” he said, in a monotone, not allowing even a flicker of emotion to be heard in his voice.

The man labelled as Caster raised his hands again, and the lights of the room seemed to become brighter. It was then that Diarmuid realized that they were in a very small room with very high walls. Above, there were stands from which other people were looking down.

Not only did Caster intend to kill him – he wanted to do it with an audience, as if he was in an arena.

Indeed, what he had said was correct. If just anyone killed one of the Seven, they had to take up their mantle. But if it was one of the Seven to do the killing, then the title would disappear.

And Caster… Caster wanted to do that in front of everyone, so that there could be no doubts about the end of the Lancer class.

Diarmuid’s eyes quickly scanned the room. He knew there was no way of escaping – without considering Caster and Ryuunosuke’s presence – and his visual examination confirmed it.

It was his end – yet he was not going to back down from facing it.

Caster saw that, and he _enjoyed_ seeing it.

“Good, Lancer. Keep your head high until I remove it from your shoulders.”

Before anyone in room could blink, there was a flash of metal and Lancer’s signature spear-shaped dagger slashed through the air.

Diarmuid’s head rolled on the floor for several feet, and the sound was followed after a few seconds by the collapsing of his body, as a large gush of blood spilled around, soaking the two men next to him.

Caster smiled again, a smile filled with madness and depravity.

“And another one of the Seven is gone,” he proclaimed for all the people to hear, while Ryuunosuke sniggered behind him, zealously going to pick up the severed head of the last Lancer.

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Arturia put her glass under the water depurator and patiently waited for the slow drops to fill it. That morning had gone by far more quickly than she had expected.

Diarmuid’s death had been an unexpected blow for the whole unit. He had gone undercover to infiltrate the immense organization known as the underground mafia; he had posed as a smuggler and tried to join their ranks in order to find information and proof in the hopes of eventually convicting them.

Everyone privy to that mission – and they were very few people – had known that it was extremely risky and dangerous, as was any assignment that would require the need of being undercover. However, no one had expected one of their best agents – not to mention, one of the Seven – to be discovered in less than two months and for him to be ruthlessly beheaded.

It was true that Diarmuid had actually managed to go further than many other agents; most of the ones who had tried to infiltrate the mafia had been found out much sooner, and they had been mercilessly shot down.

Diarmuid, being also Lancer, had done much better, but in the eyes of Kiritsugu – the boss – he had still failed the mission and lost his cover, his class title and his head. In the last case, _literally so_.

To Arturia, the matter was slightly different. While she had never been close with him, he had however always been a colleague she got along well with.

She had had only one mission together with him, a very long time before, yet she had appreciated his code of honour in carrying it out. Both of them had a moral compass of sorts they agreed on: they only killed under extreme circumstances, contrary to most of the other agents.

On that specific mission, they had had to break into a heavily guarded house. Inside, in the darkness, they had been separated and, due to unfortunate circumstances, she had been forced to kill a man in self-defence; with his dying breath, the man had pronounced his name – Arthur, oddly enough – and his title, and passed his sword-like katana to her, making her become Saber. She had then heard a gunshot in the distance and, when she had reunited with Diarmuid, he had had a spear-shaped dagger, and had admitted that he had been forced to kill a person as well, who had given him the Lancer title.

Arturia recalled that, when they had later talked about what had happened briefly, Diarmuid had confessed that he had found it odd how the person, whom he had not been able to identify as either female or male, had seemed almost relieved at heaving its last breath.

Suddenly finding themselves becoming part of the Seven was a real surprise for them both, but they were well-trained agents, therefore they took it in stride.

Aside from that shared experience, however, Arturia had to admit that she had not known Diarmuid particularly well. She had seen him around the police quarters sometimes, and they always greeted each other, but their relations had been quite distant.

That didn’t mean that the news of his sudden, brutal death did not come as a shock.

As she brought her finally full glass to her lips, Arturia could not help thinking with a heavy heart about the man’s horrible destiny, and with dread about what was going to happen next.

The underground organization, known as the Holy Grail, was powerful, deadly, and worst of all, criminal and involved in the worst drug cartels ever seen. They were stealthy and skilled in covering their traces, making it absolutely impossible to find evidence about their interminable list of crimes. Everything they did was illegal and always included a murder, yet even in the rather frequent times in which there were witnesses, they were either too scared (and they had actually the right to be, as the organization was proficient in threats, torture and blackmail) or too corrupt to testify – and that meant that the organization’s power was unstoppable.

There was indeed a lot of ‘whispered truth’ about the Holy Grail, and some things about the bosses were known – unofficially. But without proof, they could not be convicted, and crime could reign free as they held the true power.

The Seven, instead, were not an organization. Around a century before, a skilful artisan had forged a collection of seven different weapons, and they had been given to seven people who could master them. The weapons were particularly deadly, and the seven people were beheld in suspicion and fear. For some reason, the tradition had then started, of passing on the weapons from the owner to the killer of the previous owner – the ones who won the weapon had the duty to learn how to use it – and the tradition still continued to this day.

It was true that there were other unofficial rumours speculating the fact that two or more of the Seven were part of the Holy Grail, as well as the rumours that two or more were instead government agents.

However, with Diarmuid’s death, Lancer had disappeared entirely; together with the remains of his body, his broken spear-shaped dagger had been found as well.

Lancer was only the second class to disappear. Before his undercover mission had started, the clothes and several body parts of the person who had more or less publicly announced that he was Assassin had been found. They were on the edge of a cliff, by the sea, and since other body parts had been brought to shore, there was no doubt about his death. However, his weapon had not been recovered; either it had been lost in the water (as was highly likely) or someone had taken it. Since nothing had been heard from Assassin from then on though, it was commonly accepted that he was dead.

Those deaths, aside from being horrible, were also very worrisome. The police had been unable to intervene to study the crime scenes or investigate the murders, because the power of the illegal community kept growing, unrestrained.

…

Frowning, with her thoughts lingering on those disturbing matters, Arturia took the direction of Irisviel’s office, hoping to be able speak with her about the possible leads they might have on Diarmuid’s murder, since the police was obviously trying to investigate.

They knew it had been the madman Caster, but going from that mere knowledge to actually figuring out how to capture him was another matter entirely. Besides, they needed proof of it, not just rumours – and Arturia, who had a degree in law, knew better than most how difficult it was to find enough evidence to convict a culprit.

However, she did not get far in her walk to the office, as Natalia seemingly appeared from nowhere and blocked her passage.

“Kiritsugu wants you in his office,” the silver-haired woman informed her. “Afterwards, come to the training room.” The look she gave her was meaningful but, to Arturia’s surprise, there was also a hint of concern in it.

She could not inquire about it, because Natalia elaborated on her own. “You’re about to start a new mission, Saber. It will be unlike anything you’ve done before.”

Arturia raised an eyebrow.

“You already know about it?”

Natalia’s shake of her head was minimal.

“I recognize the look in Kiritsugu’s face.”

Knowing that it meant that it was serious, Arturia gave her a nod and turned around, reaching her boss’s office within a few seconds.

It was time to find out what their next move was going to be.

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When Arturia was first assigned to Kiritsugu’s unit, she had been Saber for over a year, and she had already been among the best agents. But training with Maiya Hisau and Natalia Kaminski had showed her her limits with implacable accuracy.

She was indeed the best agent, but only when it came to _conventional_ abilities. Neither Natalia nor Maiya could compete with her in hand-to-hand combat, sword fight, dagger fight, or shooting with precision from a distance to a moving target. But in all these things she was good only when she considered her enemies to be on her same understanding of respect and of upholding certain rules in battle.

The two women showed her that it was a naïve way of looking at the world. She had to realize that when it came to criminal matters, there were _no rules_.

With them, Arturia was forced to learn about the unconventional. Natalia was a master of stealth, of the unusual fighting, of using _any_ kind of object as a weapon, while Maiya worked at her best from the shadows, unscrupulously using long-range weapons to take enemies by surprise and disappear without leaving a trace. And of course, both women had no qualms in being ruthless.

It wasn’t that Arturia was lacking in that department. When it came to completing missions, she was a very resourceful person, quick on her feet and able to analyse the worst of any situation rationally, without losing her cool even in the most desperate of moments. But she did indeed have problems in keeping up with the other two women, when they proved they could play dirty and were not ashamed of it.

To answer to people who played dirty, she quickly understood that there was no other choice but to play the same way, no matter how much she could dislike it. _That_ was what Arturia learned from them – even though she refused to steep as low as they did.

Natalia had been blunt at the beginning of their training: if she was to be part of Kiritsugu’s team, she had to learn their methods, regardless of whether she liked them or not.

“Here with us, do you want to learn to be honourable, or do you want to survive, Saber?” Natalia had said bluntly, conveying the crude reality of the facts without sugar-coating it.

Her steely blue eyes examining her attentively, the woman had then sighed, replying to her question herself. “Fair enough – you are _already_ honourable. But do you think that your enemies care for honour? Do you think they will have respect for you as their adversary? No. They will want to _kill_ you, by any possible means. I have little scruples when it comes to killing and my methods are never completely legal, but believe me, Saber, the most common tactics used among the real criminals can put even me to shame.”

Even though Arturia could not agree with everything Natalia and Maiya taught her (it was a two-way deal, since they had decided it from the beginning, as she instructed them on getting better in the _conventional_ fighting styles), she recognized that by training with them, by having them introduce her to different ways of thinking, she grew as an agent.

And slowly, they became to have a mild form of friendship.

…

…

One of the things she had not agreed on in the least was the sexual part of it.

The two women had showed her the many uses the body could have, instructing her – through _direct_ practice, no matter how unwilling she was – about the usefulness of sexual acts. What had occurred was and remained, for her, among the most unusual and degrading experiences she had ever had to say the least; but Arturia had always refused to cross the line completely and use her own body as a tool during missions.

That had brought her to a disagreement mainly with Maiya. While Natalia didn’t care what she did with her own body, Maiya believed she should put it to good use.

“The body is a tool, and you should make use of it if you want to be truly proficient,” had been the woman’s implacable words.

Arturia had done her best to keep a collected expression on her face, because hearing that had tested her patience in more ways than one. She knew that Maiya had always put duty before anything else, and since they were similar in that regard, it was certainly a rare occurrence when they disagreed or tried to lecture each other.

The true, main difference between them was that Maiya was fully loyal to Kiritsugu, while Arturia only acknowledged him as her boss yet held deep misgivings towards him.

But, whenever they had a mission, she and Maiya put their differences aside and teamed up well – something that surprised both them and Kiritsugu – and while their methods differed, they respected each other’s abilities, never interfering with the other’s work as long as the mission was completed successfully. Therefore, having such a discussion had not been welcome to Arturia at all.

Thankfully, Natalia had intervened, quieting them both and telling them to keep each to their own line of conduct but making sure it didn’t put the other in danger. Seeing the reasonable side in that, they had agreed to never bringing it up again.

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With Kiritsugu, on the other hand, there was nothing. No reliance, no collaboration, no _talk_. He openly despised her, and she distrusted him. His methods were unorthodox while hers were mostly traditional, thus they could not even remotely work well with each other.

And yet, she was the best agent he had available, and he was the one who always had a plan for using her talents to the fullest. While she disagreed and voiced her objections, she did follow his orders, even if in a probably more lawful way than he would have liked.

Kiritsugu very reluctantly and just barely agreed to have her in his squad, but only because she was assigned to it from the higher ups – therefore he had no choice in the matter – and also because her skills were indeed useful to him for the smooth execution of his plans.

Since she had never sought his approval and deeply disliked his ruthlessness, she did not care much about being acknowledged by him either way.

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With Natalia there was some more mutual respect. As a person, the silver-haired woman was merciless. While she wasn’t as proficient as Arturia with ‘conventional’ tools, Natalia was exceptional with the _unconventional_. Working with her was therefore quite problematic, because the silver-haired woman was the most successful when she had solo missions, all on her own, without risking the wellbeing of others.

She seemed to hold a liking for Arturia. Similar to Kiritsugu, she did not think that it was smart of her to try to be lawful and bring the criminals to justice through such means; but contrary to him, she _accepted_ that they had different outlooks and she taught Arturia her underhand tactics. While she was not prodigal of explanations, she did give her pieces of advice that the other considered invaluable.

At the same time, since Arturia knew a few more modern tricks than she did in the way of weapons, the blonde woman taught her as well – and both shared their knowledge voluntarily.

They were certainly not friends, but they knew that they each had abilities the other did not, and therefore they could understand one another sufficiently and actually get along.

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A person Arturia was instead truly friends with was Irisviel.

Officially, she was Kiritsugu’s secretary, but in truth, she was much more. She was the one who had all the information coming and going. She had always the latest news at her disposal, she kept check of what the news said at all times, and of the ‘rumours’ that were around as well.

Not being an agent who went out in the field, she made up for her practical inexperience with her sharp brain and the ideas she often gave Kiritsugu in order to complete his plans.

It was true that lately she had seemed a bit more reserved than usual and it was much rarer to see her smile, but Arturia could not blame her: criminality was increasing once again, as the situation with the Holy Grail did not seem to make any progress nor head in a direction that would give positive outcomes.

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Even though she could not agree with Kiritsugu and their interactions were non-existent most of the time, Arturia still remained in the group under his command. What they were doing was for the good of the people of the city; they were part of the police, they defended the law and they captured criminals.

They were doing what was _right_ ; Arturia was therefore very willing to put her personal feelings aside for that greater cause.

In the squad, she was called by her title Saber. Kiritsugu had started it, and it was a form of scorn, as he refused to ever use her name. Not knowing that, Natalia, Maiya and Irisviel called her the same, and Arturia had decided that it was fine. Since the rest of the police force that knew about her used her real name and not her status as one of the Seven – making sure her identity as one of them was not exposed – it was after all acceptable.

Thinking about other members of the police force, Arturia felt herself almost smiling. Recently, she had had the chance to meet the newest recruits, and since one of them, Rin, was her late mother’s goddaughter, she had gotten to know her and her friends.

That had also prompted her to take an interest in the younger generation of people who intended to join the ranks of the police forces and do their duty in defending the law. Rin, her younger half-sister Sakura and their friends Shirou and Taiga were all working hard to enter the police, and sometimes, Arturia would go talk with them and perhaps even cheer them on briefly.

They were good people and she encouraged them in their training, because she saw promise in them all.

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Once again, Kiritsugu considered his options.

The underground criminal organization known as the Holy Grail was powerful, far more powerful than anyone would have liked to admit – but that did not make it any less true. They were incredibly powerful not just in the city, but in the entire _country_ as well. Tracing a many number of crimes back to them was easy enough, but finding proof that they were the actual perpetrators, now that was another matter entirely.

The mafia was a powerful entity that embraced corruption and murder and allowed criminals to act freely. If the Holy Grail were to fall, however, all the criminals would be exposed, as there would be no one to protect them any longer.

The way Kiritsugu, Irisviel, and the higher ups all saw it, it was best to use a mole. To infiltrate that organization so that they could break it apart from the inside.

They had already tried with several agents and eventually with Diarmuid, but it had not gone well: all of them had been discovered and brutally killed. It was very likely that the task force itself had a mole, but there was no time to begin to search for it, as in the meantime the Holy Grail kept growing.

That had made Kiritsugu reconsider nearly everything, and he had decided that the initial objective of taking down the organization from the inside was too ambitious; there were too many different elements in it as to not make it a compact conglomerate, and an infiltration of that kind would not work.

Therefore, instead of going at it directly, it was best to do it indirectly – from the _outside_ , by getting into the private lives of the people involved in it.

The psychological part of such an operation was important. Diarmuid, while an excellent agent, was too straight-forward and honourable to understand the mind-set of the criminals he had had to hide amongst – not to mention that, since his motivations were quite clear, his every move became predictable. Even though he had been able to provide some useful information, none of it could be considered enough to be used as proof to convict anyone who was part of the organization.

Officially, the organization didn’t even exist; unofficially, however, many names of the members were known. And as it was, some of the bosses were part of the Seven.

The Seven. Kiritsugu closed his eyes in irritation for a second.

Lancer was dead and, with his weapon found destroyed, his class had been eradicated as well. Assassin was presumed dead, even though there was admittedly no official confirmation for it.

Rider had recently been replaced – from what Diarmuid had been able to communicate, previously it had been a woman who had been killed almost by accident – and the new Rider, a famous politician known as Iskandar Macedonia, was part of the Holy Grail as one of the bosses.

Caster was one of the bosses as well, and was the only one whose face was known to the police, but he, along with his followers, was far too elusive to be found anywhere. His reputation as a coldblooded lunatic was not exaggerated: Diarmuid’s severed head was another, unneeded proof of it.

Berserker was a bit of a mystery to understand, since his nature was shady, but from the information Irisviel had been able to gather, he was part of the organization, too, even if he probably wasn’t among the leaders.

Saber, on the other hand, was an agent in his squad – the agent he liked the least – and then there was Archer.

Kiritsugu’s lips pursed in thought as he considered the information he had about that man. It had taken him more than just a few months of stalking – stalking he had done himself to make sure the information was accurate – but he had finally found out his identity.

Archer was the rich oil owner, Gilgamesh Babylonia; and from what he and Irisviel had been able to find out, he was one of the bosses as well. Or rather, it was very likely that he was _the_ most important person in the entire organization.

He was the person Kiritsugu had found peculiar and whom he believed could be approached in his private life. He was quite a conceited person and had refined, expensive tastes, and was famous for always wanting the best of the best in everything he did. He was exceptional at hiding his business from the public, but there were hints that suggested that his activities were not entirely legal, and that proved that he was one of the bosses – if not the _main_ boss, the mind behind the entire Holy Grail, whose identity still wasn’t known.

In any case, whether or not he was the head of the organization, Gilgamesh still was the key to bringing it down.

Studying him revealed a far more complex personality than Kiritsugu had expected, making manipulating him harder than would have been useful. Even his faults were difficult to use; for example, while he was arrogant, he was not boastful, and his confidence was hard to use against him.

What stood out in him, however, was his taste in people: he only gave his attention to ones he considered _interesting_. Therefore, only the right person could make it – a person who would interest him.

And when Kiritsugu coldly looked at the logic of it, there was only one of his agents who could manage to do that.

Maiya was good at following orders, but she did not have enough initiative. Natalia was exceptional, but she sometimes wasn’t quick enough on her feet. No one else had enough expertise. As much as Kiritsugu hated the fact and wished it to be different, Saber was the best agent around, especially for the job he had in mind. Her training exceeded that of anyone else, and she was resilient. She was going to be perfect for the role.

He suddenly felt his vision getting blurry and shook his head twice, vigorously. Those strange headaches were getting more and more frequent, but he could not let anyone know about them, nor could he let them affect him.

He focused back on his plans. Since the mission was likely to last for many months, it was best if they started with it right away.

It was indeed a risky play, Kiritsugu had to admit it – if she was found out, she would be worse than dead within moments – but he believed that there were high chances it could work, especially because it was not a straightforward method of infiltration.

As far as her acceptance was concerned, he wasn’t worried, and his lips curled slightly upwards in disgust. Her way of thinking was all about doing ‘what was right’ and ‘respecting the law’, which had always made her moves easy to predict. At the same time, it was also easy to influence her into doing what he needed her to do for his plans to succeed, and for the occasion at present, it was going to work out well. She was going to accept, and he could not help feeling once again contempt towards her, for he could not respect a person like her.

However, the mission was going to be different from the usual ones he tasked her with, because he was not going to have any control over what she did: once undercover, she was going to be completely on her own. She had enough capabilities to manage, Kiritsugu had to very reluctantly recognize that; but it was indeed dangerous. As much as he hated Saber, he did not go as far as to wish for her death – or at the very least, not such a _useless_ death.

In truth, it wasn’t solely for her abilities that Saber was the obvious choice for the mission. She was going to have to fabricate herself a new identity and go undercover, that was true, but it was going to be an unconventional undercover mission.

She was going to have to pose as a civilian, perhaps enrolled at the police academy, but she would have to pose as a _normal_ person – something Saber had never done in her life, Kiritsugu was certain of it. What he needed her to do, however, was manage to find information about the Holy Grail.

She was going to do such a thing by getting close to Gilgamesh Babylonia, close enough for him to trust her and let some things about his illegal activities slip – and since she had a degree in law, it wasn’t going to be difficult for her to understand what constituted as sufficient evidence. _That_ was what she was going to have to do.

That was also another reason why she was the only one for the job. Based on what he had learned about the blond oil company owner, Kiritsugu had concluded that there were high chances that a person like Saber would interest him.

If one could get close to that man, it would be enough to make him lower his barriers and break through his defences, finding out enough to convict not only him, but also many other people involved, and that would make sure the Holy Grail crumbled.

In order to get close to the man, however, as he had already considered, there had to be someone who could _interest_ him, since very little interested Gilgamesh. Nothing material caught his eye, but people – _people_ did.

Not many people, as he tended to look down on the majority of them, but _some_ people did interest him. They were mainly people who were driven and determined and truly passionate about what they did and their beliefs, people uncaring of others’ opinions of them.

Kiritsugu detested those exact traits about Saber.

That was why she was perfect for the job. Without even trying, if she kept being her usual, annoying self, it was highly likely that she was going to catch Gilgamesh’s interest. And if she played her cards right, she was going to keep his interest long enough to trick him and make him slip in what he said and did – so to be able to find enough proof to arrest and convict him.

Once again, a wave of tiredness came over Kiritsugu. He sighed, knowing that he was going to need to sleep for a few hours to recover from his occasional and unusual moments of drowsiness.

He forced himself to concentrate again. Saber was a skilled fighter and with a quick enough intelligence; she was a very useful person to have in his squad if rightly manipulated, even though he still found her incredibly naïve. Nevertheless, while he himself found her dislikeable in the extreme and only interacted with her when he had to – mainly when he had to debrief her – he knew, from what he had studied and researched about Gilgamesh, that the chance that _he_ was going to be interested in her was very high.

That was, of course, only if Saber followed the plans he had elaborated. She was surely not going to be happy about them; but he was aware, from a few cryptic words Natalia had said about her – contrary to him, Natalia seemed to be able to get along well with her – that there was a little darkness in her that he could put to good use, at least in the occasion at present.

He passed a hand over his forehead. It was time to debrief her and impress clearly upon her what she needed to do.

…

…

As she entered the office, Kiritsugu could see from her expression that she knew better than to expect a greeting of any kind, and then he looked away from her. The least he had to deal with her, the better – and that included even glancing in her direction.

Without a word and making a point to avoid looking at her, Kiritsugu gestured in Irisviel’s direction, and the woman handed Saber her file with all the information about her new undercover identity.

...

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_Weeks later_

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Arturia accepted the mission.

Kiritsugu had bluntly told her what was expected and what was at stake, and she had accepted. It was going to be a long-term assignment – it could take months or even years – and she had little doubt that, regardless of its success, it was going to be life-changing. Especially because it was unlike anything she had ever trained for.

It was one thing to have to hide her identity and carry out an assassination or a stalking. It was another to have to pose as a civilian and attempt to be _normal_ instead of being the agent she was. However, she decided to take it as a challenge.

Besides, the mission was huge. It was the most difficult one she had ever been given in her life, and it was possible that it was going to be the last as well, as the likelihood of dying was quite extreme.

She was glad that she had little to nothing to worry about in regards to her new identity. She had had to practice the signature of her surname – she was going to go under the name of Arturia Albion – learn that she had been living abroad for a few months, and she had had to enroll at a police academy. Irisviel had made it so that it looked like she was transferred as she had come back from abroad, which meant that she was going to be in the third year.

Just within the past few weeks, she had already begun attending it, as she had had to start building her new identity in a believable way.

Kiritsugu had probably had the longest talk with her ever since they had known each other – and yet, by normal standards, it had still been curt and rather brief.

Her boss was a man she disliked – he considered her a tool and made no question of it; while she preferred him being clear about it, she could not say she liked the fact that he so openly shunned her – but she knew that his plans always succeeded. Well, _usually_ , at least.

But if he told her that she would be able to get into Gilgamesh’s good graces, she knew that it was very likely that it was bound to be the truth – no matter how disbelieving she was of the actual success probability of that specific plan.

However, she had little to no hesitation. Taking out the Holy Grail organization would mean freeing not just the city, but the entire _country_ of countless threats, and that all depended on the success of her mission.

The risk of dying was very, very high – Diarmuid’s destiny was always there to remind her of it – and the mission could take an extremely unpredictable amount of time. It would mean giving up her life for it.

It was true that she did not have much of a social life – or just a life outside of her work – to begin with, but having to create a cover meant throwing away her previous life _entirely_.

Yet she did not hesitate. And she could see that, even if Kiritsugu spoke little, there was contempt in his eyes, and his mild glare confirmed to her that he had expected nothing different from her, and he was irritated by her predictability.

However, he did not waste any time in commenting on it and, very efficiently and bluntly, gave her all the details about the man she was going to need to get close to. Or rather, he made _Irisviel_ give her all the details about Gilgamesh Babylonia, things like his tastes, his preferences, his habits and all his known dealings.

Arturia had resolved to maintain her stone-faced, impassive expression the entire time of the briefing – Maiya had been a good teacher in that sense – but her façade almost crumbled as he let her know, indirectly, that she was going to have to eventually _sleep_ with ‘her target’.

Kiritsugu’s tone had been bored as he had told her, “Seduce him, pay him, tie him up, torture him, I care little about the details that are at your own discretion. Just get close enough with him to make him trust you, and find enough evidence to convict him and the organization.”

Aside from that part, which she tried to avoid thinking about, she had also had to give up her katana, the one that identified her as Saber.

Kiritsugu had been irremovable on that: Saber was part of her identity, and she had to discard it completely in order to forge a new one. He was also going to have Maiya plant her sword in some place underground, in a dumpster, where the Holy Grail would find it and speculate about the destiny of Saber herself and her class title. Arturia was reluctant about that part, but understood its necessity.

The one thing that puzzled her exceedingly still was however the actual dealing with Gilgamesh Babylonia. Kiritsugu had told her that she had to be ‘herself’, and that such a thing was going to be enough to attract the man.

From the information he had given her, however, Arturia still failed to see how _she_ could be of interest for such a rich and self-absorbed oil company owner and who was also renowned for the incalculable amount of people he had slept with.

...

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...

When Arturia was given the date in which the mission was officially going to begin, she decided that on that day she had to go by the offices one last time.

After all, as soon as she went undercover, she would not be able to come back ever again. There was the possibility of indirectly sending short communications to Irisviel, but it was still risky and, for the sake of her cover, the contacts had to be kept minimal.

She did not go by the office of her boss because she had not been summoned, and she did not intend to address Kiritsugu right before beginning her mission. If he had not let her know anything, it meant he had nothing to say to her, and she most certainly did not have anything to say to him, either.

Maiya and Natalia were in the training room, as usual, and Arturia took her leave from them in quite a simple fashion.

Maiya, with a completely straight face, reminded her once again, “You are going to have to seduce your target, Saber – get over your scruples and accept your duty.”

Arturia would have felt irritation if she had not seen a strange flicker in Maiya’s eyes – and she suddenly understood.

The dark green-haired woman honestly believed that sleeping with the man was unavoidable, and was therefore bluntly telling her about it to make her slowly get used to the idea. And while she did not agree with Maiya’s reasoning, Arturia decided not to fault her for actually trying to help her – because she meant well.

Natalia, while tsking at the other woman for her words towards Arturia, said, “It’s indeed likely that you will have to sleep with him, Saber, but… What you will actually need is to get close to him _emotionally_ and make him trust you – therefore it means that this is going to be an exercise in psychology.”

She gave her a pointed look before adding, “And you will forgive my bluntness, Saber, but you don’t exactly shine in your emotional side.” Her tone became more practical. “To make him lower his barriers, unfortunately, since he doesn’t seem to be an idiot, remember that you will have to lower your own. Be careful though – don’t let him in too deep.”

It was strange to see the two women, with whom she had trained for so long and in so many different situations – even _naked_ and at their complete mercy, for heaven’s sake – but towards whom she had nothing more than some form of respect, look at her with actual worry.

It was true that the mission of making her target trust her was not going to be easy, since she was not used to being open to others or receiving other people’s confidences – yet she would endeavour to make it.

Maiya surprised her by actually bowing to her.

“Good luck, Saber,” she said, surprising Arturia even more.

Natalia nodded, a wry smirk on her lips.

“I am confident that you will manage to bring down the Holy Grail, Saber. If anyone can make it, it’s you.”

Astonished, Arturia could only stare. After a second, however, she recollected herself and bowed to both women.

“Thank you.” She meant it. “Even with our irreconcilable differences, I am grateful for having had your mentorship.”

She was indeed glad that, while they had different ways of working and outlooks on the world, they had been able to work together nonetheless.

All three women gave each other formal yet meaningful nods, before Arturia turned and left the room without looking back.

Outside, Irisviel was waiting for her, and she was looking at her with a sad smile.

“It’s already time for you to leave,” the white-haired woman said, melancholy lacing her words.

Arturia nodded slightly, and leaned forward to embrace goodbye the only true friend she had in the building.

Irisviel hugged her more firmly than Arturia had expected, and as they separated she murmured, “I know you can make it. I believe in you. But be careful, Saber. Be _truly_ careful.”

Arturia was not blind, and she could see that there was something amiss with her, especially since she was avoiding her gaze. She opened her mouth to inquire about it, when Irisviel grabbed her hand and brought it up, holding it firmly in both of hers.

Her dark red eyes stared into her green ones directly.

“Remember, Saber: not everything, or everyone, are as they appear to be. Please _promise_ you will remember this.”

A bit taken aback by Irisviel’s vehemence, Arturia squeezed her hand in what she hoped could be felt as reassurance.

“I promise, Irisviel.”

The expression on Irisviel’s face was strange. There was something frighteningly… _final_ about it.

Arturia suddenly thought she partially understood: Irisviel was talking about Gilgamesh. Maybe she was trying to reassure her about her mission and give her comfort about what she was likely going to have to do. And the white-haired woman was probably worried about her safety as well.

Warmly, Arturia hugged her again, this time a little longer.

“We will hear from each other soon.”

Irisviel gave her another odd, sad smile, before nodding at her one last time and going back to her office. Arturia watched her leave, a bit worried, before going towards the exit. If Irisviel had not added anything else, it meant that she had nothing more to say to her; therefore, she would not pry into her friend’s strange mood.

She opened the doors that led to the other departments of the police station, as she still intended to see some others before leaving for good.

…

…

…

“Miss Arturia!” a voice called her.

She turned around and was glad to see Rin and her friends, as she had been looking for them.

“Rin,” she greeted, with a rare smile on her lips.

After exchanging the usual pleasantries, Arturia went on to the more serious subject. She had asked and obtained permission to tell the young recruits some generic details about her mission, because she could not risk them unknowingly blowing her cover only because they were ignorant about it.

She explained that she was about to change her identity for an important mission and, as they all looked both awed and confused, she elaborated, “This means that, from now on, if you ever meet me anywhere, you will have to pretend you don’t know me.” To make sure she impressed it clearly upon them, she added, “It’s fundamental.”

Her tone had become graver as she spoke, and as all four were quick to nod in understanding, she concluded, “I must leave now. Please allow me to wish you the best on your upcoming tests, your training subjects and your future in the police.”

Rin’s eyes widened in shock and alarm.

“You are speaking as if you will never see us again…”

But as she met the green eyes of the blonde woman, she quieted. The look in them spoke volumes.

“I can’t predict the future, Rin, but this mission is not going to be short. In the best case scenario, it will last many months.”

What she didn’t add was that it was likely to cost her much more than time, for her life was on the line as well. She wasn’t keen on considering that option, but the young recruits weren’t naïve enough not to understand the implicit message.

Upon realizing that it might very well be a farewell, Shirou and Taiga shook their heads energetically, while Sakura and Rin looked horrified.

“You are the best agent there is! You will succeed!” the black-haired girl insisted.

While she was oddly touched by their faith in her, Arturia could only give a tight smile. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

The four of them looked at each other, and then back at her. In chorus, they exclaimed, “We believe in you, Miss Arturia!”

Arturia’s eyes widened slightly at that unexpected display of trust, and she felt an unanticipated warmth filling her. Natalia and Maiya first, then Irisviel and now this. Their sentiment was honest and truly kind – and she appreciated it.

“Thank you. All of you.” Looking them in the eye, one after the other, she then bowed formally. “I wish you the best. Goodbye.”

They bowed as well, too overwhelmed by the sudden feelings to say anything else, and she took her leave.

She briefly considered going to say goodbye to one of the retired agents she knew – the one who had recruited her – but ultimately decided against it; finding that agent was a feat in itself, and she didn’t have enough time left.

As Arturia Pendragon, now Arturia Albion, finally walked out of the police’s special department to officially start her undercover mission, she had no idea that Irisviel had known far more than what she had let on.

The white-haired woman knew very well that her friend was never going to meet any of the people inside the building, ever again.

Or, at least… not _alive_.

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	2. Swallow down your hesitation, what is it that you wish for? (Caster)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before you read, just one warning: the tags are there for a reason, so please pay attention to them ;)  
> Also, some flashbacks in this chapters will be better explained later on, as the themes mentioned at not light :(
> 
> Many thanks to MimiBlue for the beta work :))))

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On the scheduled day, Arturia was at the café, as instructed. She was going to have a ‘casual’ meeting with Gilgamesh Babylonia – well, as casual as was possible for her to have.

She knew that she was going to be completely on her own from this day on. There were certainly going to be ways to exchange messages with Irisviel, but absolutely no direct communication was going to be possible, and there was also going to be no set plan to follow anymore. Everything was going to be solely up to her.

And frankly, Arturia liked that prospect.

Not because she thought it unwise to follow plans; on the contrary, she believed that it was indeed for the best to have a plan, but there were usually too many variables to consider to be completely confident about the actual outcome. With the exception of Kiritsugu, she had after all never seen anyone whose plans actually went smoothly.

What she preferred was having the _objective_ clear in her head; the details of how to get there would come up later on their own, adapting to the situations.

She needed to become close to the man known as Gilgamesh, who in truth was also Archer, one of the Seven and one of the bosses of the Holy Grail organization. She had the general guidelines: she had to manage to get on a talking basis with him and later make him trust her; but the details, they were not truly up to her as Kiritsugu had claimed – they were up to the interactions with him, and they were going to be fleshed out as time passed.

It was a long-term mission, after all, and even if she could resort to forceful means in order to find the information she needed, it was best to start everything with a simple and calm approach.

…

However, when she had read in her file that it was going to be an ‘accidental meeting’, she had not thought that it meant that it had to be an _actual_ accident, and in public at the café.

In fact, what happened was that she was quite violently thrown to the ground as she and two other people crashed into each other. She felt her head spinning for a few seconds; struggling to suppress her fighting instincts, she blinked a few times to finally manage to get her focus back. Suddenly, there was a hand offered in front of her, obviously to help her stand up.

Still slightly dazed, she took it and was brought to her feet, finding herself face to face with a man she recognized instantly.

Gilgamesh Babylonia.

The owner of the café was apologizing profusely, asking them how they were and worriedly looking them over for injuries. There was a curtain in the middle of the room that had made it near impossible to see who was coming from the other side, which had made Arturia and Gilgamesh had crashed into each other in the most literal way, together with a waitress, who had however already disappeared. And since Arturia thought she had briefly seen the woman _wink_ at her, she was almost certain that it was Natalia, who had of course already made sure to make every trace of her very existence disappear.

The blonde woman brought her attention to herself. She felt a slight headache coming up, but she was otherwise unharmed, and she was quick to reassure the café manager about it.

Then she finally turned towards the man who, surprisingly, had still not let go of her hand. Bewildered, she stared at it and then back at him, raising an eyebrow.

“While it was kind of you to help me get up and I appreciate the sentiment, you are very much allowed to let go of my hand now, sir.”

She had no idea what about her words could catch his interest, but if he had simply been giving her a look over earlier, he was staring at her directly now.

He dismissed the manager with a few words and, still holding her hand, invited her – or rather, _pulled her_ – to sit down at a nearby table.

By then, she was quite annoyed. Wasn’t this man extremely arrogant in just taking such liberties with her!

However, before sitting down in front of her, he brought her hand to his lips, in an old-fashioned but startlingly sensual gesture, and kissed it lightly.

“My name is Gilgamesh Babylonia… and the pleasure of meeting you is all mine, even though the circumstances could have been more favourable.”

Arturia was disconcerted, as she had not expected something of this kind to happen at all. Finally taking back her hand, she stared at him with barely concealed mistrust. In the way he was staring back at her, it was hard not to expect him to have an agenda of some sorts.

“Indeed the circumstances weren’t the best,” she finally said, very cautiously.

She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She had just crashed into him, he had helped her up and they were now sitting in front of each other, apparently waiting for the staff to bring them free coffee to apologize for the accident. While her mission did indeed expect her to become acquainted with him as soon as possible, she had not thought the process would be _this_ quick.

A flicker of confusion passed over Gilgamesh’s face.

“Your elusiveness regarding your name is peculiar, miss.”

She stared directly at him and – taking her time since she had just met him and her head was still spinning slightly – took him in, mentally comparing what she saw with the information she had about him. His appearance matched everything she had read: he was certainly handsome, well-dressed, with that perfect, spiked-up, sunny blond haircut and his eyes… his eyes were a deep crimson, very close to blood red. The look in them was firm and powerful, and their light made them seem oddly intriguing.

Finally bringing herself out of her musings, she considered her words, determining how she should reply.

“Accidentally crashing into a stranger doesn’t mean that there is the need to give said stranger name and address,” she finally replied, again with caution. It seemed odd to her that he expected her to introduce herself right away.

He suddenly smirked at her, and Arturia found that that expression, while certainly irritating, suited his expensive appearance.

“And why not, miss?”

She narrowed her eyes. Really? What kind of question was that? She had a reply ready, but she should probably hold back because–

Wait. Kiritsugu had said she had to be herself.

Right.

Being herself meant giving her _honest_ opinion while also behaving like a proper civilian person. Even though it seemed to her that doing so – that was, following her natural impulses when dealing with a stranger she had just met – was rather counterproductive when thinking of her mission, she would do what her boss had ordered her to do.

Therefore, without blinking, she finally replied, “Because, as far as I know, you could be a thief or a murderer, and I’m certainly not going to give you the opportunity of exploiting this accidental meeting.” She stood up, ready to leave. “Good day to you.”

His hand on her wrist made her stop, and she had to repress her instincts again, which were suggesting her a dozen different ways of getting free of his grasp.

She looked at him directly once again, and was surprised to see that he seemed to be staring back at her as if he was _intrigued_.

It finally hit her: he had probably expected her to be like one of his many conquests, ready to drop at his feet as soon as he showed the slightest interest in them.

She narrowed her eyes. Who did he think he was?

Coldly, she gave a glance to her still imprisoned wrist.

“Be so kind as to release me, please.”

He inclined his head to the side a little, his expression strangely curious, but he did not comply with her request.

“I don’t intend to bring you harm, I only asked you for your name… for now,” he added, as an afterthought. “In any case, it would be very rude of you to leave before the staff brings our free coffee, as they so _clearly_ wish to feel better by apologizing – and you would _not_ like to make them feel worse than they already do for this accident, would you?”

She froze and she knew that she was not able to completely conceal her shock. How… how did he know that such an argument was going to make her change her mind about leaving…? How did he find the _exact_ thing to say that would force her to reconsider…?

He smirked at her, his absolute confidence in his ability to read her painfully obvious. His hold on her wrist tightened slightly, but then he released her and, very reluctantly, Arturia sat down again.

It didn’t help that in the meantime his smirk had remained firmly glued to his face.

He inclined his head to the side again. “There is no need to be so haughtily stand-offish, miss. I asked your name in order to have a way of addressing you as I inquired after your health. You did get quite a blow to the head.”

Arturia winced slightly, the mild throbbing in her skull reminding her that he was right. He gave her a knowing look, and eventually, she reluctantly acquiesced.

“I’m Arturia Albion, and I can’t deny that I have a slight headache.”

His palpable amusement seemed only to grow at her words, but he did not say anything as they were brought their coffees and she started to sip slowly. The taste was very good, and she closed her eyes briefly, bringing to mind all the times she had trained with Maiya and Natalia under the effect of drugs or other substances. Compared to what she had endured with their brutal training, the actually rather hard blow she had received was nothing.

She only opened her eyes again when she heard the sound of a pen scratching on paper, and her gaze focused on the note on which Gilgamesh was writing down a string of numbers.

Surely, he wasn’t…–

He handed it to her, before asking, “Your number?”

She stared, very much uncertain about how to proceed. He was giving her his number and was asking for hers, but she could not deny that she felt reluctant. After all, he was a stranger–

Oh. Right. The mission. The mission that demanded for her to get _close_ to this complete stranger. She felt some slight anger at herself for nearly forgetting the reason she was even at the café in the first place.

But before she could determine a good course of action, he had already decided for her. Sighing almost dramatically, he put the note in front of her.

“Give me a call, send me a message during the next few days – or I will simply find you again on my own.”

She could only sputter indignantly as he stood up and took his leave with another of those she had already come to define as his signature smirks.

As Arturia remained alone in the café, however, she realized that she had once again reacted following her natural impulses and forgotten to keep herself focused on the mission – something she usually never did. She believed she might finally start to see what Kiritsugu had meant when he had let her know that she had to be ‘herself’.

Not that she had found it hard to do so when dealing with Gilgamesh Babylonia. His forwardness prompted her to close up, to be wary and guarded – and he, as odd as it sounded, seemed to _like_ that.

She let her wariness leave her body as she considered. During most of her brief conversation with him – her _target_ – she had completely forgotten about her mission. And she wished nothing better than to harshly throttle herself because of it.

Just _one_ meeting with this man, and she was already losing focus? What kind of competent agent behaved like that? She was being ridiculous.

Gilgamesh’s general attitude was nothing short of irritating, and her combative nature could not take his arrogance without answering or by simply being meek and accepting of his ways.

And that was precisely what interested a man like him, she realized. He was apparently so used to having his own way in everything he did that only someone who didn’t comply with his requests – or demands – could interest him.

Yet that was exactly what she did, because she did not take anything he said as absolute, and wholeheartedly refused to take orders from him. Her boss had known that, and she could see now that that was why he had sent _her_ on this mission.

 _‘Well played, Kiritsugu’_ , she reluctantly thought with a mental grimace.

…

…

…

Arturia found herself staring at her phone quite a few times during the next two days of distractedly following classes at the academy – she was very much bored by them – but on the third day, while walking home, she finally decided to just give in to the impulse and send him a brief text message.

She was not going to call him, but she decided that she was not going to ignore him either.

Less than a minute later, however, her phone was ringing, and looking at the screen, she could see that it was a call from _him_. She answered cautiously, remaining focused, even though on this day, strangely enough, he did not seem to be his usual arrogant self.

He first inquired about her health – surprising her – and then, noticing from the background noises that she was outside, managed to persuade her into telling him that she was walking home from the academy. And smoothly, he steered the conversation forward in order to ask her out for coffee – right there, right then.

Without even knowing how exactly it had happened, twenty minutes later Arturia found herself sitting in front of Gilgamesh, sipping on her coffee and guardedly answering his questions as he effortlessly kept the conversation going between them.

She did her best to act normal, while keeping in mind that she had to behave as a _normal_ person indeed would, especially when meeting with someone she didn’t know.

Those considerations made her finally realize that she could, and should, ask questions as well. With proper caution, of course, as he was a stranger she had just met and about whom she didn’t know almost anything yet.

Her interlocutor fortunately did not seem to mind the fact that she was asking questions about his job. In fact, while he was very elusive about the details, he replied quite normally, explaining briefly and rather generically that he was involved in business, in the managing of oil companies.

As Arturia was beginning to feel that they had spent far too much time in the cramped coffee shop, he took her again by surprise by seemingly reading her mood, and standing up, paid the bill for them both.

When she tried to protest, he simply replied, “I insist. I asked you out, I’m paying.”

Her eyebrows shot high when he continued nonchalantly, “Get ready for next Saturday, as we’re going out to dinner.”

He smirked at the noticeably guarded alarm on her face. His tone condescending, he added with his smirk widening, “It’s quite obvious that you are not used to going out with someone you like.”

She glared at him, truly starting to become outraged.

“You presume _far_ too much.”

With another smirk, he seemed to ignore her comment to inform her, “I will pick you up from your place at seven.”

Since she eyed him suspiciously but didn’t say a word, he sighed and added, “Do I need to _ask_ to have your address?”

She gave him the flattest stare of the day.

“Yes. You do.”

He seemed to enjoy hearing that, but he still narrowed his eyes.

“That is very presumptuous of you.”

That did it. He had done nothing but be a complete and utter jerk, behaving as if he was entitled to everything and acting as if his word was law and as if his decisions were absolute.

Therefore, Arturia finally lost her temper.

“No, it’s _not_. This is the basic civility required by every normal person. If you want to know something personal, you have to ask and let the person decide whether or not to tell you. You are demanding for me to have dinner with you, choosing the place, the day and the time without even asking for my consent or even bothering about my opinion on your premature plans. And you have the nerve to call _me_ presumptuous for not giving you my address just to spare you the _trouble_ of having to _ask_ for it?”

She gave him a look filled with detached distaste. “I can’t understand how you are able to ever stand in front of any mirror without it breaking as it faces the sheer force of your overbearing conceit.”

For the first time since they had met, Arturia had the satisfaction of seeing true astonishment cross Gilgamesh’s perfect features. He stared at her, complete silence reigning between them for quite a while as his expression turned suddenly unreadable.

She decided that she had said more than enough and there was nothing else to add, and therefore made to stand up and leave – but he didn’t let her.

His fingers curled around hers, wrapping them in a hold that sent a brief sensation of shock down her spine but that she thankfully managed to conceal well. His crimson eyes studied her very intently, and his every word was uttered slowly.

“You are a very outspoken woman, aren’t you?”

She raised an eyebrow a little, and pondered. Should she consider it a rhetorical question, or a real one? Well, why not consider it a real one.

Therefore, she replied, equally slowly, “I have never been interested in being the judge of my own character.”

His fixation on her seemed to become firmer at that, if the increased intensity in his stare was anything to go by.

“You don’t hold back in your opinions, no matter how impertinent they are, and I find that positively engaging,” he bluntly stated, as if talking to himself. “Conversations with you are proving to be far more intriguing than one could expect from your uptight appearance.”

His eyes were impossible to discern as he stared at her as if he wanted to weigh her.

The blonde woman decided, after a brief mental struggle, to overlook the slight offence his words were giving her, and stared back impassively, waiting for him to finish.

He inclined his head slightly, something flashing through his eyes. “I find that spending time with you is something I actually desire to do. That is why I request dinner on Saturday evening, as it’s the only free moment I will have next week.”

It took Arturia a couple of seconds to realize that he was _explaining_ himself, thus coming the closest he was probably capable of to an _apology_. And she couldn’t help staring at him once again.

In spite of her better judgement and in spite of the aversion she felt towards his undeniably conceited attitude, she had to admit that she had rarely felt this engrossed in a conversation with anyone before. He was a clever person and, while behaving as if the world rotated around him, he seemed strangely able to read her and understand her mind and preferences quite easily; even if that didn’t stop him from doing as he pleased, he had proven that he was not unaware of what she thought – and he could actually _acknowledge_ it.

She furrowed her brow. On a dinner out – a _date_ , perhaps – there would certainly be occasion for more dialogue, and talks with him could be a very interesting mental stimulation, as much as she was reluctant to admit it.

After a pause, she finally gave a short nod.

“Very well. Saturday it is then.”

He almost gave an amused smile at her decisiveness, the earlier tense tone completely gone.

“I need your address now, Arturia, to be able to pick you up on Saturday. Will you give me the name of the place where you live?”

…

…

…

She ended up telling him her address, but not before forcing him to _ask_ once again.

It was obvious, Arturia surmised, that he was used to people giving in to his demands right away and never questioning him. Perhaps, however, he enjoyed the exact fact that she did not behave the same way.

Talking with him was not something she could do casually or without giving careful thought to what she said. It required her to be fully there mentally, to concentrate and make use of her brain; in short, it was a _challenge_.

A challenge she was reluctant to admit she liked so far – even one she found herself drawn to.

Focus. She needed to focus. She was on a mission, for heaven’s sake. Why did she keep getting distracted…! It was extremely unprofessional of her; she should think about her next move with a clear head and without getting side-tracked.

The fact that she was going out – on something that was nothing short of a date – with her target on Saturday constituted a problem in a way that Arturia had never had to experience before. As a matter of fact, it was bothersome in regards to her wardrobe.

She didn’t have the slightest idea about what she should wear on such an occasion, because she didn’t know what was considered fashionable and what wasn’t. She had grown up in foster care, her parents having died when she was very young, and spent her entire adult life as an agent, without ever going out to ‘have some fun’, as others had called it. She knew what that so-called ‘fun’ consisted of; she had simply never had any direct experience of it. And whatever curiosity she had felt about the ‘fun’ had been quickly erased by the ruthless training she had gone through with Natalia and Maiya.

She decided to make quick work of that shopping nonsense. Going to a clothes store, she allowed the shopkeepers to give her advice on the dresses, and selected a couple of them. The price was not a problem; she had never cared much for money because the police department had always paid for everything she needed, and for this mission Irisviel had set up a bank account under her fake name with a substantial sum that she was supposed to have inherited from her parents. Her back story – of having grown up in foster care – had not been changed for her fake identity because, as she knew very well, it was best to keep as close to the truth as possible, to avoid getting confused and blowing her cover.

That money’s purpose was to use for everyday needs, for ‘ _any_ kind of expense needed to get closer to the target’, Irisviel had emphasized, and obtaining a suitable attire for a dinner out with Gilgamesh Babylonia certainly satisfied the requirements.

…

…

She was very much surprised, during the following days, to find out that Gilgamesh had not asked for her address merely to come pick her up. The following mornings, every day including Saturday, she was delivered flowers, expensive ones, which always had a short note enclosed from him.

She was bewildered, and honestly was not sure on how to deal with such a thing. She had never been the object of that kind of attention before, and in many ways, she could not say she liked it. It seemed like such a cheap form of needless flattery – but indeed, she didn’t know how to react to it, especially after she finally realized what the purpose of that gesture was.

It was disconcerting to say the least. She had not expected to be _wooed_ on a mission, let alone a mission to take out the Holy Grail organization.

…

…

…

When Saturday came, Arturia was glaring at the beautiful dress she was wearing with all her might. Why did she have to go through so much trouble for a simple dinner?

Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. For the good of the mission, she was going to go out with Gilgamesh; and since he was obviously going to take her to some expensive place, she had to dress up.

Mentally sighing, she comforted herself by considering that at the very least, there were going to be more of their surprisingly intriguing conversations – and she wondered how it had happened that she was actually _looking forward_ to them.

She didn’t have time to ponder over it, however, as the object of her ponderings arrived punctually, and had her take a seat in his expensive, flashy, yet oddly stylish car.

During the ride – she had thought he would have a chauffeur but he was driving himself instead – he asked her teasingly, “Did you receive the presents?”

Politeness required her to thank him, but she couldn’t rely on politeness alone. She wanted – and had – to be herself; therefore, she was completely honest.

“I do not particularly care for flowers,” she began earnestly, and she observed him from the corner of her eye as he maintained a neutral expression.

Then she looked down at the bouquet in her lap – the last one, which he had just delivered to her in person, made of stunningly beautiful blue roses – and the briefest hint of a smile appeared on her lips.

“But I did appreciate your gesture of sending me some nonetheless.” She slowly brought the roses next to her face, to inhale their fragrance.

He seemed slightly taken aback by her words and the way she was behaving, and she could feel him staring at her – probably not directly, since he was driving as well – but she did not utter another word for the rest of the car ride.

As expected, the restaurant was an expensive and very refined place. Arturia plastered her most polite expression on her face and made sure that her dislike for all that opulence was well hidden.

Yet apparently, her best efforts weren’t even remotely enough to fool her companion.

While holding out the chair for her before taking his place in front of her, he teased, “Not fond of extravagance, I see? You seem positively ready to bite off the head of any being that dares come close enough to you.”

Keeping herself composed and polite, having resolved to be honest no matter how hard it could prove to be, Arturia replied, “Indeed I can’t deny that I find myself ill at ease in this kind of place. It’s not… it _would not_ be my selected choice for dinner.”

It wasn’t a particularly flattering comment on her part, and she knew it, but she had not expected him to grin widely at her.

“Do you believe this to be _my_ choice of dinner, suitable to my expectations?”

The tone was light, and the amusement was present in it, but there was something hidden in that question, and Arturia wondered if he was testing her or something of the kind.

Well, she was going to give him her truthful answer either way.

“I… don’t believe so,” she said slowly, while carefully opening one of the menus they had just been brought. “In spite of your obvious preference for the unusual, for showing off your wealth,” her eyes briefly lingered on his glitzy golden earrings, “this place is not precisely your style.”

She looked around, noticing the ostentatious decorations all over the place. “This is too _fake_ for your tastes. You want the real thing; you don’t want just luxury, you want the _best_ in terms of wealth _and_ good taste. And this place doesn’t seem to have much of the latter – which makes me question why you chose it for dinner.”

He was staring at her, his crimson eyes firmly fixated on her green ones throughout her short monologue, and by the end of it, he had inclined his head to the side, a slow grin starting to stretch his lips. A few moments of silence passed, and Arturia found that it was becoming difficult to hold his gaze without feeling slightly unnerved by it.

“My reasons for coming here are mine and mine alone,” he finally replied, after staring at her some more. “Your analysis, however, is perfectly correct: there is little that can provide honest entertainment here, unless one chooses to comment on the people around us.”

She blinked briefly, before looking appalled.

“Gilgamesh, surely you are not suggesting something like that…!” It was an extremely rude and nosy thing to do, and–

Only a second later did she realize that she had called him by his name for the first time and, judging by the flash that crossed his eyes, he was aware of that as well, even if he didn’t offer comments on it – not _directly_ , at least.

“I find myself agreeing with you, _Arturia_. There are only inferior mongrels around here anyway, it’s not worth giving them any amount of attention.”

She could only find his added comment even more appalling, and threw him a look full of abysmal disbelief.

Gilgamesh chuckled at her antics, not able to deny the fact that she genuinely amused him. He liked how different she was from the normal amount of people he met – both males and females – who just tended to swoon and lose any amount of wits they were supposed to possess.

This woman, instead… he was going to have her background investigated to understand better what kind of person she was of course, but he could already safely say that he was not going to want to let her leave his presence any time soon.

Arturia studied him as he looked at her as well, and kept observing him even as he changed the subject and talked with her about other matters.

She couldn’t help noticing how his eyes sparkled when he was honestly interested in something, and she felt a very odd emotion when she realized that it happened a lot when he was staring at _her_.

She absolutely couldn’t afford to react so immaturely, and forced herself to concentrate on her conversation with him.

…

During the entire dinner, even while they were eating, there was hardly a moment of silence between them, much to her surprise, as she had not thought there was much to talk about with someone who was still – more or less – a complete stranger.

She remained rather guarded when disclosing small things about her background, but fought to get over her reticence, because she remembered that Natalia had warned her that to make him lower his barriers – to make him _trust_ her – she had to lower her own. And since Natalia was extremely good at emotional manipulation, Arturia had realized that anything she had said needed to be taken extremely seriously.

It was obvious that Gilgamesh was used to having people swoon over him, not to having conversations like the ones he had with her. From what she had read on his files, he was notorious for being a playboy and the list of his conquests was endless, so why was he instead behaving as if… as if he wanted her to enjoy the evening as well?

By the way his eyes never wandered much away from her, the only logical conclusion she could reach was that he seemed positively taken with her; in fact, she would actually believe he looked almost _captivated_. And she began to think, much to her unwillingness, that she… she did not mind being in this place too much anymore, and just because he was there as well. Maybe because she could have an interesting conversation with him, but it was not all.

While he was annoying, he was not evil. He was bearable.

No, it was already more than that. His company was actually preferable to that of many other people she had met during her entire lifetime.

This was… odd.

…

When they left the restaurant, he didn’t merely drive her back home; he went as far as accompanying her to the door of her apartment complex, a place she had rented just a few months before when she had been creating her cover.

She had been wary and suspicious of him trying to take her to his own place – something she was most certainly _not_ going to accept to do – but he had not even attempted to suggest it, much to her relief. She was however becoming now suspicious again; was he maybe expecting her to invite him in? Not that she had the slightest intention of doing so, of course.

It had indeed been a rather nice date, to her own surprise; though she had not liked the place at all, the food had been good and the company of the person she was with had more than made up for anything she could have complained about.

That didn’t mean, however, that she would consider inviting this man, this stranger – well, she could go as far as to consider him something more like an _acquaintance_ now – into her own apartment.

Realizing that she was actually feeling mildly apprehensive about the strange silence that had settled between them, since the door was only a few feet away, she quickly said, “Well, goodnight then,” and made to turn away to enter the building.

But a hand on her arm stopped her, and the next second, as she moved her head to face him, she saw him lean towards her.

He was trying to lean in – to kiss her.

Before she could control herself, her instincts – which had been repressed more than once during the past few days – finally kicked in, and her body moved on its own.

She heard the fabric of her dress ripping harshly as her leg rapidly gave Gilgamesh a push, forcing him to turn around, and she grabbed his arm at the same time, twisting it behind him so that he could not move.

His face showed signs of him being actually a bit shocked, but he reacted rapidly as well.

Seeing him move to attempt to stop her half-way through her movements, she was for the first time reminded that she might as well be Saber and one of the best agents around, but the man she had just had dinner with – _had been on a date with_ – was a deadly dangerous person, and he was _Archer_.

Her manoeuvre to restrain him – which still wasn’t complete – increased in speed, and she was able to conclude it before he reacted fully. In fact, when he tried to free himself, he found out that she had narrowly had the time to completely immobilize him.

However, it was then that Arturia remembered whom she was posing as, and she immediately let go of him, taking a step back and making sure to quickly fix her dress back in place, ignoring the large rip she had created in the skirt.

Her reaction had been very good for an agent, but wholly inadequate for a supposed civilian who had been about to be kissed by her date – and the fact that she was enrolled in a police academy wasn’t enough of a valid excuse.

To her own surprise, she felt a stab of remorse for attacking Gilgamesh like that. It was true that he was one of the bosses of the Holy Grail, but right now, he was the man who had just made her spend a rather pleasant evening in his company – and she had to remind herself once again that she was supposed to be a civilian, or at most a police officer _in training_.

“I-I’m really sorry!” she apologized earnestly, feeling the sincerity in her own words as her tone came out louder than she had expected.

She lifted a hand to go up to touch his face, since he wasn’t looking at her, still straightening up, but then controlled herself. She felt it best to explain herself before he could reach his own conclusions.

“In middle school I learned how to defend myself in order to keep the bullies away. You caught me by surprise with your sudden movement and I reacted on instinct – I am sorry.”

She had not told him a lie; she had indeed learned that blocking movement to stop the bullies who had tried to pick at her small size and lack of a family in middle school. Once again, it was best if she kept close to the truth, because she knew that he was probably going to have her investigated, if he hadn’t already done so.

She took another deep breath, and repeated, “I did not expect your sudden movement. I truly apologize for my reaction.”

He had straightened up fully by then, and was staring at her with inscrutable eyes.

He seemed to be pondering over what she had just said and, after a second of silence, slowly uttered, “It’s very admirable that you are so apt at looking after yourself.”

He smiled slightly, slowly, and tilted his head to the side, before leaning in towards her again, but this time with a bit more caution. “As you were caught by surprise last time, now let this be my notice – I am about to kiss you.”

He slowly leaned closer and, seeing that she remained perfectly still, closed the distance fully and kissed her, very softly, just barely touching her lips.

To her shock, Arturia felt her heartbeat accelerating and her cheeks suddenly warming up a great deal.

It was – it was as if she was no longer in control of the reactions of her body…

As if he had sensed it as well, he moved one of his arms to go around her to pull her entire form closer to him, and the kiss deepened abruptly, the touch of his mouth becoming more insistent and making her part her lips.

But, to her slight surprise and confusion, he didn’t try to take advantage of it, even though the way he was possessively holding her in his embrace told her that he would have been more than happy to do so – yet for some inexplicable reason, he was still holding back.

When they separated, she was left breathless and could only stare at him, knowing she had a dazed expression on her face that she couldn’t wipe away so easily.

He chuckled, leaned in to peck her lips briefly one more time, keeping her in his arms as he did so, and then smirked widely, releasing her and taking a step back.

“I will see you next Saturday, same time as today.”

Finally getting her breath back to normal again, she lifted an eyebrow. The following Saturday? But if he said so, it meant…

He smirked at seeing realization dawning on her face, and walked back to his car, turning towards her only for a moment before reaching for the handle, and he grinned widely.

“You didn’t think this was going to be just a single date, did you?”

…

…

…

On Friday, Arturia received a very brief coded message from Irisviel, which mentioned that she had unofficial information about Caster being on the move and planning something for Sunday.

It wasn’t something especially useful for the blonde woman to know, but it was an update nonetheless, especially considering that her contacts with the headquarters were currently reduced to the bare minimum. In fact, this was the first message she had received since the start of the mission; receiving something from Irisviel, albeit brief, was enough to make her feel reassured on her friend’s behalf.

On Saturday, she had her second date with Gilgamesh, as planned. This time they went to a less noisy place, still expensive but much classier – much more Gilgamesh’s style, she privately considered.

Without even realizing it, time flew by as they were immersed in their now usual conversations, which jumped through several subjects without making any of them boring.

Again he drove her home after their date, and again they were standing in front of her apartment complex in the late evening.

His tone was rather bemused as he inquired, “Must I warn you again before kissing you?” before leaning in and capturing her lips passionately.

Arturia, taken aback, had to make a conscious effort to control her instincts, and concentrated solely on what was going on.

Unfortunately, that made her hyperaware of the closeness of Gilgamesh’s body, and the strangely exhilarating feeling that coursed through her own body stunned her.

Luckily, he pulled away before she could start to get lost in it, and his fingers briefly traced her cheek before he smirked and took a step back.

“I will see you tomorrow.”

He made to move towards his car, but she called after him, “Tomorrow?”

The question was clear. He turned and gave her another smirk.

“I am not satisfied with just a date today, and neither are you. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Instead of any reaction he might have expected, she took a few steps towards him and replied, “During dinner you mentioned an event or something that is going to take place tomorrow. I thought you were going to attend.”

He seemed both taken aback and pleased by the fact that she had listened to him with such attention, but shook his head slightly.

“I might have neglected to mention that the private gala tomorrow evening does involve some people I know, but it’s first of all taking place in a rather questionable place down at the docks, and it’s also held by people I’m no longer affiliated with.”

She accepted his explanation, and wished him a good night after agreeing to yet another date that was going to take place the following evening.

As soon as she was safely inside her apartment, however, she frowned, deep lines creasing her forehead. She had completely removed anything about her mission from her mind during her date with Gilgamesh – she could not deny that conversations with him were becoming more and more interesting – but now she was completely focused once again.

It was just a hunch, but… Irisviel’s last report had said that Caster was planning something for Sunday. Gilgamesh had mentioned that he knew people that were going to be at that gala, and she could not forget that he was part of the Holy Grail mafia. Was it possible? Could there be a connection?

However, why had he also added that he was ‘no longer affiliated’ with the people who were going to be present the following evening? It was odd indeed.

Shaking her head at her lack of focus during the evening – how could she have been so engrossed with Gilgamesh to forget herself and her duties? – she wrote a brief encrypted message and sent it to Irisviel.

She didn’t have any proof; she didn’t have any concrete suspicion to talk about; but she still believed that the mysterious evening gala could somehow have a connection with the Holy Grail.

...

…

…

…

...

Irisviel entered his office quietly, handing him a note on which she had scribbled something.

“Saber sent a message,” she informed him, waiting expectantly for his instructions once he read what she had decrypted.

_Gala by the docks – Caster – Sunday night – NC._

Kiritsugu frowned almost imperceptibly at the first message Saber had sent since starting the mission. NC… Non-Confirmed. It meant that the information she was reporting was not verified, not verifiable and therefore not certain.

However, he knew enough about Saber to know that if she hadn’t been quite convinced about the truth of her information, she wouldn’t have sent a message in the first place. It was very likely that she had read between the lines of something that Gilgamesh had said during their conversations – because Kiritsugu had made sure to keep close tabs on his best agent and he knew everything about her dates with her target.

“Call Maiya and Natalia,” he commanded immediately. Irisviel nodded, and opened the door to reveal the two women already there. Kiritsugu would have smiled proudly at his secretary’s foresight if he hadn’t been fully concentrated on the simple yet important operation that was expecting them.

He handed his mentor the note.

“Take the equipment you need.”

Two identical nods followed, and the women left the room without another word.

…

…

It wasn’t an easy and simple operation; it was _ludicrously_ easy, almost disappointingly so.

All they had to do was stalk the docks, finding a secluded area in which several people were gathering, and there they found Caster, together with all his associates, ready to perform one of their inhuman rituals that consisted in sacrificing the life of innocents.

The trial was public and very quick. When they were accused of multiple child murder – among many other crimes – Ryuunosuke’s passionate protests that everything they had done was for ‘artistic’ purposes had made the judge add the accusations of corpse mutilation and necrophilia. They hadn’t yet been condemned officially, because of the slowness of bureaucracy, but it was very unlikely that the Holy Grail organization would manage to protect them this time.

Kiritsugu lit up one of his cigarettes as he was waiting for the verdict. It was very likely that the underground mafia would be rather glad to get rid of one of their most troublesome members, but it was still going to be a blow on them.

Inhaling deeply, he considered that now Lancer had been avenged. And oddly enough, he had been avenged by the law, through a public trial the honourable man would have approved of.

Something of this kind was Saber’s preferred modus operandi as well, and something _she_ had actually made possible through the information she had sent him.

Kiritsugu hated that.

...

…

…

…

...

Arturia heard about Caster’s trial on the news, and was relieved to find out that the message she had sent Irisviel had been useful. She was also reassured to hear that Caster’s weapon that identified him as one of the Seven – in his case, it was a large bat – had been destroyed when he had struggled during the arrest, and when the death verdict was eventually announced, she could breathe in relief.

One of the greatest dangers of their society was not going to be able to harm anyone anymore, which was extremely positive. Now she had to concentrate on her mission again.

As weeks passed and their ‘dates’ continued – she still felt strange about the term – Arturia kept trying to wrap her mind around what was truly going on between Gilgamesh and her.

He came to pick her up from her apartment to have lunch or dinner in a number of different places, and during all these meals, they did little else aside from talking. Even though he often mentioned his house – she knew it was completely managed by a staff of servants – he had never tried to bring her there, and even though he drove her home every time they went out, he had never attempted to invite himself in.

This was completely inconsistent with what she knew about him, as her target, and this worried her; but what scared her even more was the fact that whenever she was with him, she seemed to _forget_ about her mission, and solely focused on him – as a person – and on their talks.

They talked about many different subjects, and after every date, he kissed her.

It had taken a little while, but she had become used to it, so much that, when he once _greeted_ her with a light kiss, she merely stared at him for a couple of seconds. She did not react at first – not wishing to show how affected she was feeling – but she decided to stop controlling her reactions, surprising even herself, and her lips tilted upwards slightly. She saw that he had been staring at her and, to her tentative form of a smile, he replied with a broad smirk before leaning in and lightly kissing her again, this time however with a touch more possessiveness.

From then on, every time she stepped into his car, he always leaned towards her and kissed her – and every time it was different. Sometimes it was slow, sometimes brief, sometimes deep, sometimes passionate, sometimes firm, sometimes a mix of those… every single time gave her different feelings, and while she could not deny that she didn’t understand what that meant, she didn’t find any of those sensations unwelcome.

However, even though she never felt like rejecting the caring kisses he gave her – for some reason, she could feel that he wasn’t doing things by halves, he was putting his emotions in every single touch – she never initiated those gestures.

She welcomed them, but she didn’t start them.

…

…

…

Since they talked basically about everything, it was inevitable that sooner or later it would come down to subjects that were more intimate. It had taken her a while to realize it, but once she got used to his rather frequent bursts of arrogance, talking with him wasn’t difficult – even when the current subject wasn’t welcome to her.

He had, to her surprise, made absolutely no mystery of the fact that he had engaged only in superficial flings all his life, acknowledging without shame that he had never felt enough attraction to anyone to keep them around for more than one night, nor had he ever gone on dates like the ones they were now sharing.

She had refused to understand the implications of what he was saying because it was too sudden for her to adjust to it without first giving it some serious and level-headed thought, but that was nearly impossible to do if he was around her. She had noticed how much she kept paying close attention to him and everything he did, almost to the point of distraction.

However, the sudden question that followed made her stiffen in her seat as some wholly unpleasant memories flooded her mind.

“You know, Arturia, you are now aware of my past idle relationships, but ever since you started going out with me, you never told me anything specific about _your_ _own_. It’s only fair that this is rectified.”

Even as she remained tense, she kept her expression neutral and her tone even. She could interpret it as a question about her work.

“There is nothing to say.”

He inclined his head to the side, seeing through her immediately.

“I am not asking specifics of your colleagues at the police academy, but merely about your past boyfriends.”

Again she kept herself as composed as possible, fighting an inner battle to keep all her tense muscles steady.

“I have not had any boyfriends.”

He grinned, his eyes flashing in amusement. “Girlfriends, then?”

“Neither.”

He looked at her with some curiosity, getting a bit more serious, the careful detachment in her tone not missed on him, but it wasn’t enough to deter him.

“Yet your confidence in talking about certain things implies that you are familiar with sexual acts.”

Arturia’s green eyes were completely unreadable.

“Yes. Now be so kind as to drop this subject for good.”

He understood from the curt edge in her voice that she truly did not intend to elaborate further and would not tolerate more questions. Very strangely, he actually seemed to accept her refusal and changed the subject with uncharacteristic tact.

…

…

She was unusually quiet for the rest of the date, and she was extremely grateful that he did not press her about it when he drove her back home. She lost herself into his arms as he brought her close to him to kiss her deeply, with an underlying longing in it that left her breathless, and they resolved to have the next date a couple of days later.

As soon as she was inside her small apartment, she leaned against the door, closing her eyes briefly.

She had been unable to concentrate on Gilgamesh after he had asked her those questions; the answer to them was not something she wanted to tell him. He was, after all, her target for a mission, and while she did indeed have to open up to him to be able to get close to him, some things were just private.

She had not lied. She had not had any boyfriends or girlfriends, but she knew about sexual acts because she had had sex.

It had been rather dubiously consensual, as her permission had not been asked, but Natalia and Maiya had not neglected sex in their training with her.

Arturia’s eyes shut as the past flooded her mind.

...

…

…

…

...

_A couple of years before_

...

…

…

…

...

The ‘different’ training method with Natalia and Maiya had been hard the first time. Arturia was skilled and she was proficient, but she had not expected to train in such ways – for starters, when she was handcuffed.

Tied to a chair.

Drenched in water.

In complete darkness.

Without food or water for over a day.

Under the influence of drugs.

In more and more extreme kinds of situations, Natalia would not hold back when she created the experimental tests, no matter how unlikely it was that she would actually ever find herself in such conditions.

For Arturia’s standards, however, only a particular part of the training had truly gone overboard.

“You have trained in many ways and you are very versatile, easily adapting to any kind of situation and with every kind of opponent. But have you ever had to fight when you were at a disadvantage because of something unexpected? For example the lack of clothing? Or the sudden feeling of your body being tired and boneless?”

Arturia could not give an answer to that question – especially if preceded by such compliments – for she had never trained like that. And now that she thought about it, it was a serious gap in her range of capabilities, not being capable of dealing with dire situations.

Maiya – who had just been beaten after Arturia had managed to free herself from the handcuffs, used them to her advantage and turned the tables in her training session – took a few steps towards her, her usual stoic expression in place. She unzipped her jacket without showing even a hint of emotion.

“Strip,” she said flatly.

Arturia’s eyes widened in shock.

“We’re not going to hurt you, Saber. We are going to introduce you to a different form of hand-to-hand combat. Don’t be a prude.”

Natalia’s words had done very little to quiet her discomfort, but Arturia knew that any kind of inhibition had already had to be thrown out of the window the moment she had started training with them.

During the previous times in the training grounds, Maiya and Natalia had never been shy about what they explained to her; there was therefore no reason to believe they would hold back on this specific matter.

As she slowly brought a hand to her torn sweater – while Maiya had been defeated, she had put up an impressive fight – to begin to take it off, she saw the other two women undressing as well.

“No clothes imply that you have nothing to defend yourself with. No holsters for guns or knives. No possibility of having concealed weapons or bombs of any kind. And at the same time, no clothes to shield your skin, your bones, your body. It’s more likely to get injuries and it’s more difficult to keep balance in an unfriendly territory without shoes, but without the weight of clothes, there is also nothing hindering the movements in any way. Nakedness has both advantages and disadvantages.”

The fact that Natalia was continuing to speak as all three women took off their clothes made it possible for Arturia to concentrate on her voice instead of the fact that she was getting stark naked.

After the last item left her body, she closed her eyes for a second, before turning to face the other two with her dagger in hand.

The clash with Maiya’s blade was unexpected, but she recovered quickly, and concentrated on the swordplay. If she did that, she could ignore the fact that neither of them was wearing anything.

Before the fight could get serious, however, Natalia interrupted them. She was a little taller than both of them, and she was eyeing them both with disapproval.

“Saber, Maiya, I had said that we were going to train _naked_.” Both women stared at her, one with a raised eyebrow over her emerald green eyes, the other with completely inscrutable dark eyes.

Natalia’s frown deepened. “You aren’t naked. You’re both _holding a dagger_.” Extending her hand, she took both weapons. “We are going to fight _just_ with our bodies.”

…

…

…

Three naked training sessions later, Arturia got the hang of it. It was indeed interesting to realize that, if the instinctual bashfulness could be overcome, training naked helped her find out more about her own body, both weaknesses and strengths.

However, if she had thought she had been doing well, she had not counted on the fact that Natalia was far from finished.

That day had several surprises in store for her.

“If your opponent is skilled, you will have to be truly careful. With clothes on it can happen as well, but being naked allows more opportunities for the body to be… stimulated. Between the thighs.”

Within a few seconds, Maiya had thrown her to the ground, Natalia had blocked her arms, and her legs were parted.

As Maiya’s hand descended to touch her clit, Arturia’s eyes widened in panic – and actual, shocked terror.

Natalia, however, gave her a sudden, unexpected caress along the arms she was holding down.

“Relax, Saber, we are not going to rape you… Just show you how that part of your body can render you incapacitated.”

As Natalia kept her arms in place with one hand, the other went to touch and fondle her breasts, without tenderness but without roughness, either. Arturia could not suppress a tremor that ran down her body, and the older woman smirked as she took notice of it, her fingers getting bolder as she massaged and squeezed her flesh.

Maiya, her body situated between her legs, spread wide open without her consent, rubbed her at her centre, at first carefully and then more firmly, causing unexpected sensations to start to make her body shake, and her movements slowly pried the blonde woman open, until Maiya was finally able to slide a finger inside her.

Even though she was slick thanks to the intense stimulation – Natalia hadn’t stopped touching her upper body for a moment – Arturia still hissed at the sudden intrusion, and Natalia shook her head at Maiya.

“Maiya, I see that you have still to learn how to properly please a woman. I suppose that you’re too used to fucking selfish men.”

Looking down at Arturia’s flushed face, she grinned. “There was no hymen to make things difficult, was there? You have had to train your body too much for you to be still completely tight, but you haven’t been stretched until today, have you?”

There was a hint of desire in the woman’s face, and Arturia, meeting her slightly darkened eyes, could not manage to find her voice to reply, so she only shook her head slightly.

Natalia seemed to ponder this for a moment, and then her voice suddenly became gentler.

“We’re not going to force you to have more than oral sex today, Saber, but we’ll show you the pleasure you can feel. Maiya, when you’re ready…”

The dark green-haired woman nodded, and as her face – completely straight – disappeared between her legs, Arturia almost screamed at the sensations that suddenly erupted in her at the feeling of the other woman’s _tongue_.

She would have been thrashing around, unable to keep still, had Natalia not been holding her firmly in place, and it took her all her willpower to bite her lips instead of releasing the moans that her throat was begging to let out.

She did not know how much time passed, as she completely lost track of time. The sniper woman kept diligently using her mouth while the teacher of both teased the rest of her body mercilessly, and suddenly, Arturia felt her insides tighten to unimaginable levels, her eyes roll back inside her head and she writhed in ecstasy as she finally reached her peak thanks to Maiya’s expert use of tongue and Natalia’s skilful fingers.

Arturia tried to catch her breath while the most impressive explosion of shockwaves she had ever felt was still running through her body. As she looked up, she met Maiya’s impassive stare and, unemotionally, with only a slight flicker in her eyes, the woman hovering over her licked her lips – the lips that were glistening with the fluids coming from _her_.

Arturia reddened, still trying to get herself to catch her breath.

Natalia smirked again and said, as the blonde woman lay there, naked and spent, “This, Saber, is the experience known as orgasm. I am sure you now know why it can be something extremely dangerous to indulge in when on a mission – it can make feel one completely helpless far more than any other kind of physical torture.”

Arturia could not help but agree: she felt tired, heavy, sated, and sluggish. Her vision also wasn’t completely focused, and she knew she wouldn’t have been able to fight decently if she was put in such a situation during a mission.

While Arturia had always been the one to explain swordplay – the stances, the lunge, the movements – and teaching the other two how to enhance their agility and quickness, on this matter, she found herself completely out of her comfort zone.

As Natalia released her after seeing her nod, however, and as Maiya went to turn and leave, Arturia snapped her body forward and, catching the dark green-haired woman by surprise, pinned her to the ground.

Her expression serious, she said slowly, trying her best to appear as composed as possible, “Did we not agree from the beginning that this training was not going to be one-sided?”

Natalia grinned approvingly while Maiya squirmed a bit uncomfortably.

“Very good, Saber. If you’ve paid attention to what Maiya did to you, try now to replicate it.”

Arturia did exactly that. In fact, she was surprised that the best way to complete the task was letting the expressions on the other woman’s face guide her; truth to be told, seeing the usually emotionless Maiya with her features contorted through gasps of pleasure was strangely satisfying.

When she was done – it took a surprisingly short amount of time, she noted – Arturia pulled back from Maiya. She had used her fingers and her mouth to give her pleasure, as the woman had done with her just a few minutes before.

She had known little of carnal acts like these, aside from the basic dynamics needed to conceive; she had not been aware of the use of fingers and _mouth_ in such a way.

“You learn quickly,” Natalia remarked, some mild surprise in her tone. “Not even I would have been able to make Maiya come like that on the first try.”

Arturia decided it was best to ignore that comment.

“Is it the same with males?”

She had been quick to realize that having been forced to orgasm had loosened her tongue quite a bit, and she felt it best to ask all the questions she had while she was still feeling bold enough.

Natalia started to go into detail about the pleasures of the female and male anatomy and confirmed that the use of mouth and fingers was still very much appreciated in oral _and_ normal sex, even though she added, with a wry smile, that most people rarely indulged in prolonged foreplay before getting ‘down to business’.

Maiya slowly regained her senses, and both she and Arturia reached for their clothes, carefully getting dressed again.

Natalia smirked at them.

“That’s all for today. Go rest, both of you.”

Arturia frowned, giving her a mildly confused glance. The older woman had put on her clothes again as well, but she had not joined them in the ‘session’, and she could not stop herself from asking the reason for it.

Natalia’s smile became somewhat strange.

“I get off watching others. It’s called ‘voyeurism’,” she informed her candidly, and Arturia had a difficult moment in trying to stop her face from showing shocked consternation.

The other brushed her off with a slight smirk of superiority.

“Every person has their own kind of kink, Saber. Let me know when you find out yours.”

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_Present_

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With a shudder, Arturia came out from her memory.

While on that day she had been quite terrified and she knew that she was probably never going to forgive Natalia and Maiya for forcing themselves on her body in such a way, Arturia acknowledged that, as far as her training was concerned, she had learned a lot of valuable information. After releasing all the body’s tension, she had indeed noticed how she felt a sense of satisfaction, lethargy, since it was as if all her movements and reactions were slowed down.

It had made her understand more about her limits and about her body’s lack of control when stimulated like that; however, she could not deny that that day had also made her feel for the first time how similar the two women were to Kiritsugu.

He considered her nothing more than a tool; by coercing her to have sex against her will instead of asking her, they had proved to not consider her someone they would truly respect.

Arturia had pushed herself even harder from that day onwards, and had made sure that such an episode never happened again.

At the same time, she knew that she should be careful in judging the two women too quickly, for they had a different moral code compared to hers. If she felt it impossible to ever come to trust them fully again after what they had done, it did not mean that in their point of view they had no respect for her. Whatever the case, Arturia was glad that it was a one-time occurrence and would not be repeated, because she had no desire for that kind of intimacy to continue.

As for the act itself, after her experience she could now understand why Natalia and Maiya had no problems in carrying out missions that included seducing a target, or multiple ones. Aside from rendering their victim helpless, having sex was, after all, not devoid of pleasure for the performers.

However, Arturia did not intend to do anything of the kind herself. She acknowledged the ‘lesson’ with the two women, when they had had naked combat training and then showed her how her body could be used for satisfaction, but that did not mean that it was a part of her training of which she would ever make use. She was firm and unwavering in never lowering herself to sleeping around just for the sake of a mission, especially if she had to catch criminals.

However, that was before she had accepted to pose as a civilian and tried to catch Gilgamesh Babylonia’s attention.

Both Maiya and Natalia had told her – even _Kiritsugu_ had hinted at it – that it was likely for her to have to sleep with him to be more convincing in her part. And if that was what was needed to take down the most powerful criminal organization in the world, then she would do it.

But, at the same time, she had her doubts. In order to get close to Gilgamesh – and it had been working so far – she had to be herself; and if she had to be herself, well, her true self was very firm in refusing to simply and casually warm his bed.

Pushing that unpleasant line of thought aside and focusing on the man himself, she could not deny, if she was honest with herself, that she found herself intrigued, perhaps even attracted, to him, far more than she cared to recognize.

He was intelligent and he was a continuous challenge, one she _truly_ did not feel inclined to back away from. He had travelled a lot, all over the world, and his surprisingly vast knowledge made it possible to talk with him about many different subjects, and those conversations flew by so spontaneously that she had found herself telling him more about her personal tastes without even realizing it immediately.

In fact, when he had once described some defence traps and instruments he had seen in Africa, she had not been able to conceal her interest, and he had coaxed out of her – actually without forcing – that she was rather fascinated by ancient and modern weapons of any kind.

As time passed, she had gotten used to his touches, his kisses, his penetrant stares. She had _not_ gotten used to the feelings and sensations that stirred inside her to accompany said moments.

Arturia felt her forehead crease slightly. If things continued this way, it was far more likely for her to end up sleeping with him because she actually came to care about him, even hold some true regard for him, rather than about the mission she had to complete.

And that would be terrifying. She could _not_ develop feelings towards a man against whom she was trying to find proof about his secret criminal activities – a man she was trying to become able to convict.

She just couldn’t.

It was wrong and it was dangerous; coming to respect him as an adversary was one thing, coming to develop feelings of a deeper, more intimate nature was another.

She absolutely could _not_.

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Kiritsugu was quite satisfied with how the operation was proceeding.

Much faster than he had expected, Saber had indeed become interesting in Gilgamesh’s eyes, and far more deeply than was the norm for him. According to the observations Kiritsugu himself had made, whenever someone caught his eye – and admittedly, it didn’t happen very often – he would take them to bed for a quick liaison, and be rapid in breaking their heart if they became attached, discarding them swiftly.

Kiritsugu had thought that the same would happen with the agent he had sent his way.

Yet Gilgamesh Babylonia was behaving differently than usual with Saber. Why had he not discarded her yet? He was going on _dates_ exclusively alone with her, and he was not behaving like a playboy, strangely enough.

In fact, it was as if Saber had been able to hold his interest far more than Kiritsugu had thought her capable of doing.

And this… could be very interesting. The entire relationship that was beginning to form between those two was both worrisome and intriguing. So far, it was working.

It had been thanks to those dates that Saber had acquired the piece of information that had allowed them to bring the madman Caster to justice – he had finally been executed a few days before – and that had been a blow to the Holy Grail organization, although still far from being a strong enough blow.

Much more was needed to bring down the underground mafia, and Saber was still the key for it.

Therefore, Kiritsugu determined that he would continue observing Saber and her target without intervening. The way those two were interacting was producing the desired results for now, and it had opened a new possibility as well.

If, as it was starting to look more and more likely, Gilgamesh was foolishly falling in love with Saber, then _Saber herself_ could be used as a perfect leverage against him.

It meant that, if the man was truly beginning to have feelings for her – as absurd as it seemed – then her life would be an extremely precious bargaining tool.

How interesting. For the first time, now planning Saber’s death was finally going to be of some use.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Christy for suggesting the handcuffs in Arturia's training ;)


	3. On the path of yearning as greedy as this, will there be a transient tomorrow? (Assassin)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll give a warning one last time: this story will get darker and more twisted with each chapter. If you don't feel comfortable with it, please turn away now, because I'm not going to hold back much with this fic. All the things that are unclear in the plot will be explained little by little, but it will generally go into dark territory.  
> Also, about Arturia's flashback in the last chapter, please remember that she still hasn't fully come to terms with what happened, and that is why I didn't insist too much on it, at least for now.  
> This chapter was a lot of fun for me to write, especially the last part, therefore I hope you'll enjoy ;)
> 
> Thank you so much to MimiBlue for patiently editing!!! ;D

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She truly didn’t understand what was going on.

Everything she had heard and learned before starting the mission had described Gilgamesh Babylonia as a playboy who only spent enough time with anyone in order to take them to bed – never bothering with trite things such as dinner or dates – and then moved on to the next target that would catch his eye. He had admitted himself that that was what he usually did.

Yet now he was spending lengthy amounts of time with her without any sexual intent and, while she had to admit that he did indeed stare at her a great deal, he had never tried to pressure her into sleeping with him.

Arturia was genuinely confused. Did his behaviour mean that he wanted to take his time with her in order to _slowly_ lure her to his bed and then toss her aside as well? Could it be that maybe he enjoyed breaking people? Maybe that was what he wanted: make her fall for him, use her and then unfeelingly discard her.

Perhaps that was indeed what he wanted to do, but maybe it was not. She could not know for sure.

As for now, she was on regular speaking terms with him. Well, on regular kissing terms as well, but that was beside the point.

Yet she still couldn’t wrap her mind around what was going on, because the man she had studied on Kiritsugu’s reports didn’t seem to correspond to the man she was actually with. Something was wrong there, or at the very least amiss.

That was when she suddenly recalled the last thing Irisviel had told her. The white-haired woman, who had always been very precise in her words, had told her to be careful with the people she was going to meet, and she had made her promise, with quite some insistence, to remember that not everyone was as they appeared to be.

Could it be that she was referring to Gilgamesh? Irisviel didn’t say things for no reason, and she had been investigating her target for a long time as well, together with Kiritsugu.

Then, if that was the case, it meant that Arturia needed to start from the beginning again. She needed to erase any information she had been given before the mission and concentrate only on what she had learned through direct observation during her time with him. She _had_ to base her knowledge solely on what she had witnessed herself.

But… once again, she had to remind herself that she was on a _mission_.

She could not keep being so passive in her deepening relationship with him; she needed to start being more forward, maybe by asking him more specific questions than the generic ones she had asked so far.

It was going to be convincing enough: she had now been on several dates with him, which meant that she had every right to ask more about him and his life. It was only fair since, after all, they had started dating because of a chance meeting.

If she began to ask more about him, it certainly wasn’t going to be suspicious, as he was probably going to think she was interested in him; besides, he had a large ego anyway, what was the point in not stroking it?

She needed to get closer to him – and she was doing precisely that – but she still hadn’t found out anything about his illegal activities. She had managed to tell Kiritsugu and Irisviel how to catch Caster, true, but that was something rather minor and far from enough. She wasn’t anywhere close to making him reveal his identity as Archer to her, nor anything about the Holy Grail.

It was true that the mission was supposed to be long and she had time to get to know him, but it wasn’t wrong to begin to steer things forward.

The main problem was that, every instance in which she was with him, she was mortified at having to admit that she completely _forgot_ that she was on a mission.

When she was in his company, she only focused on him, only _thought_ about him, on their conversations, and on the little, inconsequential things she was beginning to notice and learn about him. For example, his favourite foods, his dislike for too spicy things, his general contempt for people, yet his ease at seeing right through them.

He was a purely puzzling mix of a person, and she was beginning to be scared by how learning more about him made her consider Gilgamesh in a different light: not as a suspect, a target and an eventual key to bringing down the underground mafia, but as a man.

And even if she didn’t know how to prevent such a thing, she knew – she knew all too well that this was extremely dangerous.

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He had just kissed her, holding her in his arms as he did so, after yet another dinner out. Even if his embrace was rather possessive, there was still an almost imperceptible hesitation in it; she assumed it was because of her violent reaction the first time he had tried to kiss her.

After all, she could not forget his real identity as Archer; although he was rather obviously attracted to her, it was natural that he would be slightly wary and suspicious of her, given that he wasn’t a mindless person.

It was however strange that he seemed to pull her to him slowly whenever he kissed her, as if he was – oddly enough – giving her the possibility of evading his touch. While she never pushed him away, she never took the initiative, and she knew that Gilgamesh had noticed that: she never refused his advances, but she never initiated them either.

It could be seen the other way around as well, to be fair, to see it in a more positive light. She had never initiated their kisses, but aside from her very first reaction, she had never pushed him away either.

And she could see that this was making Gilgamesh think a lot, because it wasn’t normal to him.

As she was still in his arms after he had kissed her in a way that had rendered her breathless, she tried to distract him from paying attention to her flaming cheeks by asking him if there was somewhere specific he wanted to go to on their next meeting.

He stared at her pensively for a moment, before casually saying, “On our next date, we will be going to my place–”

“I’m _not_ going to your place,” she brusquely interrupted him, replying instinctively before being able to think rationally about her words, and she had to repress the sudden urge to escape his hold.

He was taken aback by her flat-out and candid refusal, and his countenance seemed to stiffen abruptly.

Realizing that his unexpected suggestion had made her react a little too fiercely, she met his gaze and amended, “Not… not yet.”

His terse expression distended at that. Arturia knew perfectly what she was implying in her sentence: she was promising that sooner or later she _would_ go to his place – and she had to fight a slight blush when she noticed how thrilled and actually _eager_ he seemed to be at that.

She knew that he was going to be busy with work the following week, while she was starting with slightly more demanding classes and was going to be on training camp the next weekend, therefore she suggested Saturday two weeks from then.

He agreed, but took her by surprise when he added, “I’ll come pick you up at nine in the morning.”

She raised an eyebrow, and he smirked as he pointed out, “You have the entire weekend free, and I intend to take advantage of it.”

He kissed her again, this time lightly, finally releasing her from his arms before turning away to go back to his car.

“See you in a couple of weeks, Arturia.”

She watched him disappear inside the vehicle, and let her gaze follow it as he drove away.

How she hated having to admit to herself that it was going to be a _long_ two weeks without seeing him.

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Arturia did her best to focus on her classes and on the mundanity of civilian life for the following days, she truly did.

But doing her best obviously wasn’t enough.

She could not help it: despite her best efforts, she kept reflecting about Gilgamesh, about her behaviour with him, about _his_ behaviour with _her_ , about what she should do on their next meeting and how things needed to progress.

They were going to be together for an entire day; that was going to be a first, and it required careful attention. She had only been together with him during meals and during car rides, not for longer periods of time, therefore it was going to be a good opportunity to deepen her connection with him, yet it also had to be handled with caution.

Ah, she should stop this – she was overthinking it.

With all her worrying, two weeks felt long but passed far too quickly, and the Saturday in which they were going to meet came rapidly.

However…

It was already half past nine in the morning, and he still hadn’t showed up.

He had never been late before, yet to her surprise, soon it was already past ten without a trace of him.

Perplexed and, to her chagrin, even _worried_ , she questioned herself if she had written down the wrong date, if she had misunderstood, if she had missed texts or calls from him. The simplest solution was to give him a call herself, and so she did.

To her even greater surprise, he didn’t pick up right away – something that he had instead always done in the past – and when, only after several rings, he finally did answer, his voice was strangely monochromatic, void of inflections and completely apathetic.

“Arturia?”

Completely confused about his odd tone, she slowly asked, “Gilgamesh? Did something happen? You were supposed to come by my place over an hour ago.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, a silence that only made the whole matter more perplexing.

Then, his tone still undefinable, he briefly said, “Not today, Arturia. I will see you tomorrow.”

The call ended, and Arturia could do nothing but stare at her phone, baffled.

He had hung up on her.

He had _dismissed_ her and _hung up_ on her without so much as an explanation, and _stood her up_ after being so insistent and specific on having a date with her on this very day.

Fury enveloped her. Who did he even _think_ he was, the jerk!?

Infuriated, she marched straight to her desk and looked for the phone book. If he thought he had the right to behave as he pleased and get away with being such a wretch of a person, he was going to be severely disappointed.

Not once did she pause as she looked up his name, address and house phone number, not even when she considered once again how odd his voice had sounded. Briefly, very briefly, she considered the option that he had found out her true identity, but she discarded the thought swiftly. If that had been the case, he would have been much colder, or even refused to answer at all; instead, he had been… emotionless.

As if something serious had happened.

Well, if that were the case, then he should have told her. If he stood her up, he had to offer a valid reason for it. Arturia would not stand for anything less.

Finding the right number, she called it immediately. She knew that he had a staff of servants at his house, and she expected one of them to answer the phone; from them, she wanted to receive information about their employer’s whereabouts – and then she was going to him and demand answers in person.

Whether he liked it or not.

…

The member of the staff who picked up the phone was understandably suspicious when she repeatedly asked to speak with Gilgamesh, but when he inquired after her identity and she gave her name, to her great surprise, his tone changed abruptly and he became fully cooperative.

He confirmed that his employer wasn’t at home though, and he seemed to expect her answer when she stated that she had been unable to reach him on his mobile phone.

Starting to lose her patience, Arturia firmly questioned, “Could you tell me where he is then, please?”

He told her, also briefly explaining the reason for it. The reply could not have been more unexpected.

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Stepping out of the cab, Arturia glanced around the quiet place. She had let her hair down in the morning, but she paid no heed to the soft breeze that blew through it as she took in the trees and flowers that surrounded the small island of nature in the midst of the chaotic city.

Graveyards weren’t usually particularly cheerful, and indeed the atmosphere was that of a subdued peacefulness. She wasn’t used to such places, since she tended to avoid them as much as possible. They reminded her too much of the lives she had taken, and she didn’t need to remember what she could never forget.

The gates were open, and after crossing them, it didn’t take her a long time to spot the person she was looking for, as he was the only visitor. He did not notice her right away though, too focused on a tombstone as he was, standing in front of it in silence.

However, since she did not attempt to conceal her presence nor hide the sound of her footsteps, he heard her approaching, and as she came closer, he finally moved his gaze on her.

Gilgamesh masked his reactions well, therefore she was unable to read his expression, but she saw that his eyes were hard on her as she finally reached him.

“What are you doing here?”

His voice wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t welcoming either. It was the same tone void of any emotion he had had on the phone. There was something seriously wrong in this situation, and Arturia felt her previous irritation suddenly mollify, at least for the moment. She was going to have enough time to be angry with him later; right now, she intended to confirm what his staff had told her.

Arturia met his gaze calmly, informing him, “I’m looking for you.”

One eyebrow rose as he scrutinized her impassable face. What she had said was far from enough to satisfy him, and she knew that very well. She also noticed how he had not questioned the way she had been able to find him; it was obvious that he had most likely guessed that she had called his house and inquired after his whereabouts.

Usually, she would have waited, forcing him to ask a question if he wanted to receive a more complete answer, but given his odd behaviour this morning and what she had found out just a short while before, she didn’t allow the silence to stretch and went on.

“You hung up on me and didn’t offer any excuses for it. You have never been a person particularly concerned with the feelings of others, but not even at your worst have you ever been this rude towards me.” The pause was minimal, but it was still there. “I was worried about what had happened to you.”

He kept staring at her for a while longer, before finally scoffing slightly.

“Go back home, Arturia. I will see you tomorrow.”

She didn’t move a step, firmly remaining where she was. It didn’t matter that this was a delicate situation, one that was visibly very hard on Gilgamesh; that still didn’t mean that he had the right to treat her like this.

She stared at him until he brought his eyes back on her, and then she replied, steel in her voice, “You aren’t getting rid of me so easily, Gilgamesh. No one forces you to talk to me, but you aren’t sending me away as if I were your servant.”

To her surprise, instead of launching a verbal tirade against her, he suddenly laughed, mirthlessly but not cruelly.

“I should have expected it,” his eyes were staring at her intently, “if you weren’t an unbelievably stubborn woman, you wouldn’t be yourself – yet you wouldn’t be here either.”

Arturia didn’t offer a reply, as it wasn’t a question, and she wouldn’t have known how to comment on what he had just said anyway.

She had been honest when she had said she was not asking him to tell her anything, especially about the person buried there, but she should have expected him to see how her eyes briefly went to read the name – and the date – written there.

His tone changed rather abruptly when he pronounced his following words.

“Enkidu was the only person worthy of being called my friend.”

He did not look at her as he told her this, and she was careful not to stare at him either. Somehow, somewhat, she had a feeling that he wouldn’t have tolerated it and, while it wasn’t like her to ever bow her head to others without question, she knew that this was a very sensitive subject.

Even though there were frequent pauses in the little he told her about his friend, she did not interrupt him, letting him talk without asking or questioning anything.

It was a very strange situation: she had never had anyone confiding in her like this, telling her so much and so openly.

Enkidu had apparently been very, very close with him, given that they had grown up together, and it was clear that his memory was irreplaceable for him. From a few things Gilgamesh said, Arturia was able to guess that his friend had however suffered from several health problems, resulting in a strong depression that had rendered him slightly unstable. In fact, it seemed that Enkidu had been forced to take some heavy drugs to fight his illness, but overusing them had made him dependent on them, therefore involving him in dangerous dealings.

She could also guess, from what the member of Gilgamesh’s staff had told her on the phone, that Gilgamesh tended not to allow himself to think too much about the loss of his best friend, aside from on the anniversary of his death. When they had agreed on their date, he had likely not immediately recalled on what day it was going to be.

She kept staring at his tombstone, not knowing how much time was passing, and not caring about it one bit. The date of death engraved there was from exactly seven years before.

Seeing that Gilgamesh had fallen silent, she finally asked, being careful not to be pushy but standing her ground nonetheless, “How did he die?”

He didn’t reply immediately, but when he did, it took her aback.

“There was a break-in at his place,” he said, curt and detached. “There were two intruders during the night, probably looking for drugs or money; Enkidu was meeting the person who gave him his medicines, and they were both shot separately.”

She didn’t ask anything else. They remained in silence, in the empty graveyard, and Arturia decided to let Gilgamesh get lost in his memories for as long as he pleased.

Therefore, she was rather surprised when, after a while, he turned to face her, staring at her directly and without any more pain edged in his features.

A hand was offered to her.

“Come with me, Arturia.”

The tone of command in his voice was unmistakable, but she could see that it was a request, not an order. Even though his words and tone could suggest otherwise, by now she knew him well enough to be certain that what he was doing was _asking_ her to come with him, not forcing her to.

She took only a split second to make her decision – and she accepted.

Taking a step forward, she took his hand, and to her surprise, he pulled her to him, enveloping and holding her in his arms before briefly burying his face in her hair. Thankfully, she was now used to being in his embrace and her resisting instincts had calmed enough around him to only give her a small twinge of uneasiness, but she was startled by his behaviour nonetheless.

He did not give her the time to recover from such an unexpected gesture, as he was already guiding her out of the graveyard and to his car, not letting go of her hand.

Neither said a word during the short trip and when the car stopped, even though she had never been there, Arturia immediately guessed that the mansion they had reached was Gilgamesh’s house.

Stepping out of the vehicle and deciding, after a split second of hesitation, to follow him inside, she looked around, feeling some slight unease and uncertainty. She wasn’t entirely sure why she was there, and she didn’t know how it was best to proceed.

She noticed how several people, whom she assumed to be part of the staff, kept polite and detached yet still cast curious glances in her direction. Gilgamesh was however swift in dismissing them all, without – she took note of it – reproaching anyone for telling her how to find him.

She was left on her own for a brief moment, until he came back and made her sit on a couch in a large living room. He poured two glasses of wine and offered her one. She merely stared at it with a raised eyebrow.

“Drink,” he simply told her.

Both her eyebrows now raised, she shook her head, but he was not deterred.

“Don’t be proud in my own house and don’t refuse my generosity, Arturia. Drink.”

She studied him, taking in his rather grave and oddly serious expression, and decided she would comply with his request, but only because she was sure he had not put anything in the wine and he was going to drink the same substance. She took the glass he was offering her and took a sip.

And then she stared at the red liquid in wonder. The taste was _heavenly_.

He grinned openly at her expression, both pleased and smug, yet strangely, it did not quite reach his eyes. A few seconds later, indeed, he sobered up and appeared rather pensive, staring at his own wine.

“I’ve always enjoyed fine wine, but Enkidu appreciated this particular wine the most.”

Arturia didn’t say anything, feeling frozen in place. She kept her gaze firmly on her glass, not wishing to intrude on the obviously painful recollections of his friend.

It took her a brief while, but she finally realized that he was beginning to open up about his past and spontaneously sharing such memories with her. All she did – all she was _able_ to do – was to listen to him, as he told her more about his friend, continuing what he had started in the graveyard.

She had never been anyone’s confidante, nor had she ever confided in anyone; therefore, the feelings were unfamiliar to her, but she did not stop him as he continued to tell her about his friend.

In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure what the best course of action was, but as she had always believed in balance and fairness, she felt as if she should offer a response to what he was telling her, a reply of the same kind. He was sharing his past with her, and even a wine he had himself admitted held a special meaning for him; what had she done in return to show she was grateful for that trust?

For that reason, after some time, when he stood up to go take another bottle of wine – the first one had been finished surprisingly quickly – she spoke up.

He was not facing her when he went to take another bottle, but she saw him freeze as she started to speak, slowly beginning to talk about her younger years and therefore mentioning her own past. She did not indulge in details, as she didn’t believe them to be either interesting or important, but she did talk about growing up in foster care. It had never been bad, just sometimes rather lonely and strangely empty.

Arturia did not know why he decided to take a seat on the couch next to her instead of in front of her, but she did not comment on it, instead continuing with her narration. When she paused, not finding anything more to say, he took the chance to speak again.

This time, however, he didn’t just talk about his friend, he also spoke about what he did _together_ with his friend.

Arturia listened, even as she drank more of the wine he offered, and she didn’t know how or why, but time started to become a mere concept as they kept sharing stories from the past, either looking at each other or looking at their glasses or even looking into nothingness, and she belatedly realized that she didn’t really care anymore…

…

…

…

Fighting to rid her eyelids from the heaviness of sleep, Arturia blinked a few times, waking up in an unfamiliar place and with a slight headache. She recognized the room as Gilgamesh’s living room and she remembered how she had arrived there the day before, but the warmth in it was not what she remembered–

…nor did she remember falling asleep against him, with both his arms wrapped around her in a possessive embrace.

She remained rigid for several long seconds, pondering.

It was now evident that they had talked so much – and drunk so much – the previous night that they had fallen asleep next to each other, thankfully with all their clothes still in place.

She mentally berated herself – _what_ kind of expert agent did that? Had she suddenly forgotten her skills?

Another thought struck her. Having been so close to him, having had him tell her so much about himself while drinking wine, _why_ had she not used such an opportunity to find out more about his illicit activities?

How foolish was she! Why had she not taken advantage of it for her _mission_?

Right. Her mission. Theoretically, she should be glad, because she had managed to make him become closer to her, by telling her about his past. Yet… she had not spared a single thought to her mission last night. She had only focused on him, on his pain, and had dedicated herself simply to listening to him and to what he was disclosing to her.

With a small shudder, she finally came to acknowledge it: she wasn’t _able_ to detach herself and be impersonal about Gilgamesh. She wasn’t able to be as concentrated as she should on the objective of the mission – something that was one of the highly important parts of her assignment, if not _the_ most important part of it.

She wasn’t being capable of displaying her skills as an agent fully, of being disconnected from what she was doing, and that was _extremely_ dangerous.

She was however brought out of her musings when he stirred next to her, and to her surprise and growing inner conflict, the first thing he did was lean closer to her, tighten his hold around her, and kiss her temple.

Suddenly acutely aware of how close she was sitting to him, she looked up to meet his crimson eyes. Although he was not smiling, the look in his eyes was intense and she was again taken by surprise when his lips went in search of hers next, before making her stand together with him and guiding her out of the room to go to the kitchen.

Arturia resisted the impulse to stretch – the couch was comfortable, but spending the whole night snuggled on it wasn’t probably the most restful sleep she had had – and did not oppose resistance when he kept holding her hand firmly. She did not oppose any resistance even when, once they reached the kitchen, he released her hand only to briefly indulge and caress her side, before reluctantly pulling away and – rather astonishingly – turning away to begin to fix them both some breakfast.

It seemed however that he was unable to stay away from her; as he moved around the room, he always managed to brush against her slightly, in a touch that was almost imperceptible but still present nonetheless.

That only made her more aware of the situation she was in at the moment. She was at Gilgamesh Babylonia’s house, in his kitchen, after sleeping on his couch next to him.

However, she didn’t have the time to consider the implications right now; shaking any thought out of her mind, she willed herself to focus, but, unable to stay idle, she looked around.

Since she was standing between the counter and the water depurator, she asked and, as soon as he gave her permission to move freely in his kitchen, she took out cups, plates and cutlery for them both. She also turned on the water depurator, as they had drunk a very large amount of wine the previous night and, if they – or at least she – wanted to avoid a strong headache to follow them for the rest of the day, the most efficient remedy was to drink a lot of water.

He came to stand next to her, observing her as she took the ready toasts and poured the coffee he had prepared. His hand casually landed on one of her hips, apparently merely to pull her back a little to prevent her from being too close to the hot stove, but not making any attempt at removing himself once that task was taken care of.

Arturia was still questioning herself on why she was being so passive about this whole ordeal. His touch, his firm and obvious yearning to keep her close, were making her feel strange, and they were sending an even odder tension through her body.

His gestures did not feel familiar, but… they weren’t unwelcome at the same time.

Every movement of his was slow, giving her ample time to push him away if she wanted to. Yet while he seemed to _know_ that she did not wish for such a thing – ever perceptive as he was – she was glad that he did not use her implicit acceptance to embolden himself. His hands did brush against her body and her dress lightly – she was wearing a simple dress, as she had expected to have a date with him the previous day and she had not bothered changing before going looking for him – but he did not try to take things further, even though his eyes held that unspoken desire.

Perhaps he was not aware of it, but the fact that, while being indeed possessive, he was not forcing anything on her earned him more respect from her than she ever thought possible. Especially since the last time she had been so physically close to someone – namely Natalia and Maiya – she had instead been forced to be naked.

However, this could not continue, and the odd tension was doing nothing to make things easier. The day before, they had shared something as personal as grief, and it had been rather… _foreign_ to her, yet also very intimate.

But it seriously could _not_ continue like this.

Therefore, she finally spoke, turning her head to stare at him and taking a step to the side to force his hand to drop from her hip.

“As soon as we’ve had breakfast, I’m going home.”

Her tone was firm and unwavering, not cold and not irritated, but making it clear that she would not accept a concession on the subject: she was drawing the line.

Gilgamesh’s face clearly revealed how obviously displeased he was at her words, but after a few extremely edgy seconds, he nodded in acceptance, even if with complete and utter lack of enthusiasm. It was all too clear that he would have much preferred her to stay at his place for some more time.

However, he would always make the most of the situation; therefore, he stared at her until she met his gaze again and calmly uttered, “We still haven’t discussed the proper redemption though.”

Her blank face made it obvious that she was not following his line of thought, and he clarified, a slow, small smirk tilting his lips upwards, “I didn’t respect our agreement to meet yesterday, and did not inform you of my absence beforehand. Therefore, it is appropriate it’s made up – possibly with a trip. Do you have plans for next weekend?”

She blinked a couple of times as she took in his words.

“You… want us to go on a trip together?”

He shrugged, a small smirk still curving his lips.

“There is an exposition about ancient weapons at the International Museum, in the capital. I won’t deny that I see little appeal in it, but I’m also aware that you don’t share my opinion. As I have business matters to settle in the area, you should come with me.”

She studied him keenly as his words resonated in her mind. She was fully conscious of the fact that agreeing would mean going on a long trip with him by car, and she was _also_ fully conscious of the fact that he was going out of his way in suggesting this. From what he had told her of his oil companies, she knew that he did indeed have business _in the area_ , but not really close to the capital.

She rapidly pondered and considered the pros and cons, as she was indeed tempted. She had long wanted to go to such an exposition, and she had even told him about her interest in ancient weapons, but she had not expected him to offer to go there _together_.

Should she accept this invitation, which sounded more like a request?

Well, first things first – she needed to understand all the details of the plan, before truly considering it.

“The place is quite far from here,” she observed. “Driving there takes more than half a day, there won’t be enough time to see or do anything if we also have to drive back.”

He didn’t seem to be concerned, and he took a sip from his coffee before clarifying, “We’re spending the night in a hotel, of course.”

Well, Arturia, mused, that would make sense and give time to explore the place–

Abruptly, her eyebrows shot high. Wait a second. Surely he didn’t mean…

She narrowed her eyes.

“I hope it’s obvious that we are staying in separated rooms.”

While amused, he did not seem too happy at her demand, but then a large grin appeared on his face, as her subtle implication didn’t get past him.

“I take it that you are accepting then.”

She sent him a glare, but both knew that it was only half-hearted, and his grin widened as she huffed and gave a short nod.

“I am not refusing.”

She thought that his expression was more than simply pleased at her reply, but anything she thought she had seen was quickly hidden behind a mask of much more familiar arrogance.

“I will be having you all to myself for the entire weekend then,” he smugly pointed out.

She snorted lightly, but did not contradict him, only added, “It goes the other way round, Gilgamesh… I will have _you_ all to myself as well.”

He seemed both taken aback and entirely too pleased by her claim, but she did not give him the opportunity to dwell on it as she rapidly changed the subject back to planning the trip.

They settled that it was best to leave on Friday afternoon, so to stay away two nights instead of one, in order to have a full day in the capital to explore at leisure, and they also decided on the rest of the details. By then, they had both finished their breakfast, and Arturia resolved that it was time for her to go home.

Gilgamesh did not allow her to help clear the table, therefore she stood up and took her leave from him by promising to be ready on Friday.

He didn’t let her exit his house before thoroughly kissing her though, even though she noticed that there was something different in the way he did so. His lips seemed more intent on caressing hers instead of simply claiming them as he usually did; was there actually more… tenderness?

She could only assume that their talk the previous day had made something shift between them, in a way that she was unable to pinpoint; and yet, she was surprised by how much that unknown _something_ was able to make her tremble inside.

…

…

…

As soon as she was back to her apartment, Arturia fought against the urge to smack her head soundly against a wall.

She had to _focus_.

She had spent the night at Gilgamesh’s house, and they had just _talked_. They had shared stories from their past and done nothing but _talk_.

What the _hell_ was she _doing_!

When she had accepted the mission, she had not expected it to be anything like what it was proving to be. All she had to do was to find proof in order to convict Gilgamesh Babylonia; instead what she was doing was–

Well, fine.

Her objective was to get close to him, to learn more about him, and she was indeed doing exactly that. Yet she had not expected it to be like this.

Kiritsugu had told her that he _was_ going to be interested in her, but she had not thought in such a way. She had not thought that Gilgamesh would… that he would spend so much time with her, to so very evidently want to _be_ with her.

Not for the first time, she wondered if her cover had been blown. He did not seem to be aware of who she really was, but she knew that he was a very cunning person and was perfectly capable of hiding the fact that he knew more than he let on. It was entirely possible that he knew her identity and was therefore merely toying with her.

It was possible, yes. It was possible that he was manipulating her, or trying to find out more from her before killing her. Maybe he _was_ simply toying with her, waiting for the right opportunity to murder her. After all, he was no innocent person; he had blood on his hands – well, so had she – and maybe he was just having his entertainment with her.

It was possible. But it wasn’t likely.

Indeed, if it were true, _why_ would he be putting so much effort into truly getting to know her?

His interest was not fake, she knew she wasn’t mistaken in that; yet why was he not behaving like he did with his many conquests? According to Kiritsugu, he would have taken her to bed and then discarded her, and she would have therefore had to act quickly.

Instead, he was _going out_ with her. He was talking with her, having _long conversations_ with her about an ample variety of subjects. And now, he was about to _go on a trip_ with her, to more or less _make it up_ to her for standing her up.

It was actually as if she had _truly_ caught his eye, as if his interest in her was deeper than she – and Kiritsugu – had ever thought it possible to be.

But that… that made no sense.

Perhaps it was best if she stopped questioning it and focused on the mission without asking herself such pointless questions.

...

…

…

…

...

There was a short, harsh knock on the office door. Irisviel usually knocked twice, Maiya’s knock was slightly longer; this was obviously Natalia.

Kiritsugu called for her to come in and, as his former mentor turned agent entered the office, he saw that she was wearing civilian clothes.

He frowned almost imperceptibly. This little detail meant that she had just been outside to run some errands, but ever since Caster’s capture, there had been no real missions for her and Maiya. They were more or less on vacation, so to speak.

Kiritsugu could make guesses about her reasons to go outside, but as it wasn’t of importance at the moment, he dismissed the thought, especially since he could feel a slight migraine already coming up again. It was far more important to find out the reason why Natalia was in his office in the first place.

As usual, she did not seem to need any encouragement, for she went straight to the point, bluntly yet with a very controlled tone.

“We haven’t heard from Saber in weeks. How is she?”

Kiritsugu would have raised an eyebrow, had he not considered it something plainly useless, therefore he settled for giving her a blank stare.

“Why should that matter to you at all, Natalia.”

The woman frowned, and Kiritsugu regarded her with a minimal twitch in his eye. “Do you doubt her abilities, then?” His tone was deliberately annoyed, knowing that it would irritate her – and indeed it did.

She gave him a surprisingly dirty look.

“You know damn well that there is no better agent than her, in versatility, capabilities and loyalty. The problem lies not within her skills, but in how they are used. This is not her kind of mission. She’s not used to using emotions as tools, nor to using them to manipulate others without being always in control.” Not even Kiritsugu was able to catch the strange note of concern in Natalia’s voice.

He wouldn’t have cared if anyone had talked to him like this, not even Irisviel, but Natalia was the sole one – aside from Saber herself – who had more experience than him and she knew Saber better. And while it was odd for her to come to address him several months after the mission had started, her opinion usually wasn’t trifling.

Therefore, he glanced at her sharply.

“Are you saying she will not be able to succeed in this mission?”

She gave a dry, tight and very odd smile.

“Oh, no, I have no doubt at all that Saber will be able to complete the mission successfully. What does worry me is the state she’ll be in when it’s over, and the price she will have to pay to reach that point.”

Kiritsugu’s blank expression clearly conveyed his patent disinterest in the subject, but Natalia was not going to let that deter her.

“You know that she has no self-preservation instinct – you have used that to your advantage more than once. She will do _anything_ for the sake of the mission, _sacrifice_ anything, and that means that she will break herself in the process. She will never be the same again, Kiritsugu… If she survives, and I believe she will, the price to pay will be her emotional stability at the very least. She will be nothing but a shell of her former self.” Natalia threw him a strangely cold look. “You refuse to acknowledge it in front of me. But you are too clever to not have foreseen this outcome.”

Kiritsugu shrugged curtly.

“If she can’t look after herself, she will have deserved her fate.”

Natalia took an abrupt step forward, coming to stand right in front of him, and her hand swiftly moved up, slapping him across the face.

Kiritsugu stared at her in shock, his own hand going to touch his sore cheek, but she ignored that.

“You _knew_ ,” her voice was full of anger, “you _knew_ she was going to be sent on a mission of this kind sooner or later, and therefore you made sure she was trained physically, yet you forbade me from teaching her anything about emotional manipulation, about safeguarding her mind, with the precise intention of having this mission _break_ her! I thought you had a plan – and oh, indeed you did! You intend to exploit her to the very end and even force her to be the one to destroy herself!”

Kiritsugu massaged his cheek, feeling his splitting headache coming up again, and he made himself do his best to ignore it. When he replied, his voice was full of mockery.

“I can see that you have fallen prey to her as well. Use common sense – it’s too late. She’s going down her final path, the one that will give us the desired results. If her sanity has to be sacrificed for the success of this mission, to take out the Holy Grail, then so be it. And you losing control of yourself over her destiny is ridiculous, Natalia.” He felt his head beginning to swim.

She glared at him coldly, noticing his minimal movements and taking no more than a second to understand what was causing them.

Inwardly, she felt relief: her suspicions were confirmed. She had been right in sending a particular message before entering his office.

“I can’t change her destiny, nor will I be stupid enough to try. It’s indeed too late. She’s gone.” There was cold judgement in her steely eyes as they weighed him. “The years have worsened you, Kiritsugu. You have lost your best agent, and gained nothing in return. Your plan succeeded, but you lost everything for it. Live with this knowledge – if you can.”

With a last, scornful glare, she turned around, ready to leave the office.

However, before she could do so, she heard a different voice suddenly speaking up behind her, a voice that did _not_ belong to Kiritsugu.

It took her only a split second to understand, but it was too late.

Her eyes widened in shock and absolute pain as a katana – _Saber’s_ katana – pierced her chest from behind, and the last thing she felt was blood gurgling out of her throat, filling her mouth and lungs and then being coughed out in vain, soaking her clothes through her shuddering gasps.

Natalia Kaminski collapsed on the floor, dead.

...

…

…

…

...

Stopping the car outside her apartment complex, Gilgamesh looked up towards Arturia’s windows, preparing to go out and either ring the bell or call her on the phone to signal his arrival. He had stopped bringing her flowers after a while, at her explicit request; she had bluntly told him that no matter how beautiful they were and no matter the fact that she appreciated his gesture of bringing her some, she didn’t know where to put them anymore. Bemused, he had acquiesced.

He decided to ring the bell so to be able to hold her in his arms before they started their trip – something he could not do as easily inside the car – and exited the vehicle, his thoughts firmly focused on the woman he was about to see.

She was certainly a remarkable person – he would even go as far as to consider her a _unique_ one.

From the very first time he had met her, especially since he had been generally bored with the little he could consider worthy around him, she had caught his eye in a way that was completely out of the ordinary. What was more important, she had managed to _keep_ his interest so deeply that, even before their first date, he had already needed to know more about her.

Therefore, he had requested to have her investigated. Everything he had been able to find out about her seemed to be safe enough, and what little she said about herself perfectly coincided with it. She did not seem too keen on talking about herself or her past, which was understandable, yet anything she said only made her that much more interesting.

He had been unable to prevent himself from becoming truly captivated by her, especially as time passed and he could enjoy longer conversations with her. In their dialogues, she always spoke her mind without holding back, not afraid nor in awe of him. To his slight shock, she had also proven to have surprising insight as, on their first date, when he had purposefully chosen an expensive but too flashy place in order to test her, and then pushed her a little, she had been able to guess his tastes by reading him accurately.

Of course, he had checked her background to make sure she was telling him the truth. She had indeed grown up in foster care, had a degree in law, and she was truly going to become a policewoman, something he believed suited her character fairly well. That was all perfectly reasonable, and made sense with the mental image he had of her character.

What was strange, however, was the fact that sometimes she gave the impression of hiding something, of having unpleasant, dark memories she did not wish to talk about and about which he had not been able to find anything when he had ordered a discreet background check on her.

It was also a bit peculiar that, while he had confirmed that she wanted to become a policewoman, sometimes it seemed as if that wasn’t quite all there was to it. She was supposed to be still _in training_ , still needing to compile experience, yet some of her extremely skilled behaviour bespoke instead a confidence that could only be obtained through long and _direct_ experience.

She had also proven to be physically fit, as her startlingly fast reaction back when he had first attempted to kiss her proved, but there was again something not quite right in it. The look in her eyes in that moment had made an impression on him, because it had been that of a person used to defending herself and who had most certainly seen death – it had definitely _not_ been the look of an innocent civilian.

He had known it then: she had killed before. Perhaps in self-defence, that was true – in fact, he thought that to be rather likely – but she was not unaccustomed to taking lives. And he felt rather certain that he was able to see that only because he had killed as well.

Yet strangely, that didn’t take any of her appeal away – oh no, it only increased it. She was righteous, dedicated, and fair, but there was darkness to her as well. Maybe she refused to admit it, maybe she refused to dwell on it, at least in his presence, but the mix of her contradictions and her many facets made her too interesting to even contemplate the idea of letting her out of his grasp.

There was more to her than met the eye, and he was determined to find out everything he could. She had warmed up to him in the past weeks, and she had spoken a little about her infancy when she had come to his house the previous weekend, but she still hardly ever shared anything meaningful.

She kept reserved about herself, and especially her strange, categorical refusal to speak about her past sexual relationships had made it obvious that it had very little to do with bashfulness and much more with what were almost certainly very unpleasant memories. Whatever it was that was making her so reticent, it was not anything light.

The stony coldness in her eyes when she had asked him to drop the subject of her sex life could only lead him to believe that there was deep distress in that story. He doubted it had anything to do with an emotional attachment or a failed relationship, since she had readily affirmed that she had not had any. The elements he had pointed into another direction.

She refused to talk about her experiences, she often showed uneasiness with close physical contact – even now, after months of dating, she sometimes stiffened when he took her in his arms without warning – and again he couldn’t forget her incredibly fast yet also instinctual reaction in immobilizing him the first time he had tried to kiss her. What he could deduce from all these facts was that she had probably been sexually assaulted, or at least, she had been forced into situations that had deeply scarred her.

Yet until he discovered more about her, he could not know for sure, because she was unfortunately far more complicated than he had thought, and she expertly kept many parts of herself tightly locked away.

At the same time, another thing that made him seriously think over her mysteries was the fact that, even if she was unwilling to talk about certain events of her life that had taken place before meeting him, she did not seem to be a disingenuous person. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, it was rather easy to see what she was thinking, and he could not detect a hint of wilful deceit in her. The explanation that he believed to be the most accurate for this was that, while she behaved normally in her everyday life, there had to be some trauma in her past that she firmly refused to speak about, much less _share_ with him.

However much her reluctance could displease him, he had no doubt that, given time, if she came to trust him, she would tell him.

He wanted to find out – but he wanted _her_ to tell him. He wanted her trust and wanted her _everything_ , all of it, without restraints. Even if she was the most stubborn woman he had ever met, she was able to keep his attention far more than he expected, and he still refused to entertain the notion of simply discarding her or letting her go.

She was captivating him so much that he had almost forgotten about Enkidu’s death anniversary, which had made him stand her up on their planned date; again, she had surprised him by not meekly accepting his behaviour but stubbornly confronting him about it. Something that had ended up making her fall asleep in his arms, and he knew that it meant that she was starting to truly trust him.

He was surprised himself at how much he wanted to find out more about her, especially when she made things so difficult; he was truly surprised by how much he _cared_.

She was dangerous, he realized. She was a _danger_ for him, for her presence was proving to be a vulnerability. He was going _out of his way_ for her – he had willingly told her about some things of his past, when he had never told anyone about them before – and she was taking up space and time in his life, clearly without even trying.

Arturia, in spite or maybe even because of her secrets, was amusingly interesting, and he felt himself drawn to her more than to anyone he had ever met before.

That did not mean that there weren’t things about her that could be frustrating as well, because for example she sometimes didn’t seem to care much about herself if it meant helping others.

Yet her contradictions and flaws were also a part of what made her… oddly special.

Worriedly, he passed his hand over his forehead and through his hair as he rang her doorbell, waiting for her to come down and meet him.

She was becoming too important to him. After all, had he not considered her worthy enough, just a week earlier, to share his memories of Enkidu with her? He was opening up to her, readily letting her in his life, and she was walking right into it, in such a natural way.

It was actually laughable of him to have been surprised, back when he had stood her up, by the fact that she had not let it go and had sought him out, demanding an explanation. Of course she would do such a thing; and after seeing how determined she was, he had not hesitated in giving her one.

Gilgamesh frowned, as he heard her steps, indicating that she was coming down the stairs. While he was starting to tell her a few things about himself, he had not told her anything about _other_ parts of his life, ones he meant to keep secret. While she was being a danger to _him_ , if he told her anything about his other pursuits, they would pose a serious danger to _her_ , and he was not going to allow that.

He had many enemies, and if those mongrels noticed – as they no doubt would – that she had become important enough for him to tell her about his involvement in those matters, she was then going to be targeted.

Besides, since those activities were illegal, he did not think it wise to let her know about them either way. Not just to protect her – it was maddening to realize that he already wanted to possessively _protect_ her – but also because she was going to be a policewoman and respecting the law was obviously very important to her.

He finally met her green eyes as she closed the door behind herself and turned to face him, a large bag in hand, and he let all his thoughts and actual _worries_ about her safety flow out of his mind. She was wearing a simple dress, practical and ideal for travelling, and he almost smiled.

Right now, she was with him and all he wanted was to enjoy his weekend with her. Everything else could wait.

Right now, he just wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless, and that was exactly what he did.

…

…

…

Arturia had packed enough things for more than just the two days, because she had become close enough with Gilgamesh to strongly suspect that he wanted to make the most of every second of the time they had, and therefore assumed they wouldn’t be back before late Sunday evening at the earliest. She had to be at the academy only on Monday afternoon, while he was supposed to have work but had already hinted that he wanted to take the day free.

She didn’t really mind if they changed plans at the last minute, as long as she was ready for it, therefore she took up a few extra things, just in case.

The car ride was going to be long, partially across the countryside, and after a brief bickering exchange in which Gilgamesh refused to let them take turns in driving, the conversation fell into silence. However, it was not uncomfortable, and neither felt the need to break it by bringing up any kind of subject, being just content to be as they were at the moment.

There was little traffic, given that they were out of town and the roads were slightly slippery as it had rained the previous day, but there were indeed a few cars around.

Everything was proceeding normally until, scarcely an hour after they had left, suddenly the car in front of them lost control.

Sliding across the asphalt to the side of the road, its high speed made it lose its balance and turned it upside down, yet it still continued to screech forward until it finally ended its erratic course by crashing against a tree with a deafening sound.

Immediately, Gilgamesh slowed down, and Arturia brought a hand on his arm, instantly exclaiming, “Stop the car!”

He complied, taking out his phone and dialling the emergency number to call for aid for the people inside the overturned car while, to his surprise, she unfastened her seatbelt. She had been about to call the emergency as well, but since he had already done that, she had something else in mind.

Gilgamesh was speaking into the receiver, curtly relaying the accident, but he was still able to see what she meant to do, and he leaned forward, grabbing her arm resolutely – because he was _not_ going to let her exit and do what she obviously wanted to.

But, the moment he ended the call, she managed to break free from his grasp.

“There was also a child in that car,” she informed him tersely, and opened the door, running out towards the damaged, upside down vehicle, from which strange, small exploding sounds were coming.

As she got closer, she was able to assess the situation better. The back of the car had suffered extensive damage, while one part of the front – where the thankfully empty passenger’s seat was – had completely been crushed against the tree, and smoke was beginning to come out of it. It was very dangerous to get close, especially since the vehicle was upside down, but there were people inside, and Arturia could not ignore that.

She saw movement on the other side in the front and hurried to go open the driver’s door, with some difficulty, finding the man sitting there barely conscious and with blood seeping from a deep wound in his leg and a smaller one on his head. He had already managed to unfasten his seatbelt, helped by gravity, but he was clearly unable to exit the vehicle on his own, and he raised a hand towards her.

Arturia put his arm around her shoulders and helped him exit the vehicle, but he grabbed the fabric of her clothes with insistence, his eyes wide in panic.

“My daughter… please… leave me but help my child…!”

Gilgamesh had just reached them as well – Arturia was actually mildly surprised by his presence – and he relieved her of the weight of the man, carrying him some distance away and taking care not to affect his injured leg. Arturia stared at the car, seeing once again how the doors in the back were badly damaged, bent into odd curves, and clearly unable to open.

She carefully approached the driver’s seat and looked inside. In the rear, one of the seats had dislocated and fallen down, and underneath it, she could see an arm moving faintly, while a voice was weakly calling, “Dad! Dad!”

She made her decision in a split second. Climbing into the car, ignoring the light smoke that was beginning to fill it, she went to the small place left in what had been the passenger’s seat and looked for the knob to pull down – or rather pull up, since the car was upside down – the driver’s seat, hoping against hope that it would work.

Luckily, it did, and having taken that obstacle away, she climbed into the back. With all the strength she could muster, she managed to lift the fallen seat a little bit, and met the eyes of the frightened young girl trapped underneath it.

Arturia spoke, quickly but clearly, “Are you injured?”

The girl, who couldn’t be older than twelve, shook her head, and Arturia went on, “I’m going to lift this seat, and you will have to come out from underneath it. Climb towards the front of the car. Can you do that?”

Fear in her eyes, the girl asked, “Where is my dad? Help my dad first please…!”

Arturia was beginning to feel the strain of the weight of the seat, but she still quickly replied, as calmly as possible, “He’s outside, asking for you. As I pull up the seat, you have to come out, you understand?”

The girl murmured her assent and nodded, so Arturia concentrated her strength and energy in lifting up the seat again as much as she could.

The little girl was slim, and managed to sneak out quickly from underneath the broken seat, which Arturia then let fall back against the car’s damaged ceiling. But when she indicated the driver’s door to the girl as a place to get out from, there was an odd sound coming front the front – from where the engine was.

Fear, which had never left the girl’s eyes, now raged wildly, and Arturia pulled her towards herself just in time as the driver’s door violently slammed back against the driver’s seat, almost smashing on them both.

The car was slowly collapsing on itself, and the two of them were trapped inside.

Without wasting any time, Arturia kept the girl close to her body and sneaked towards the other front door, and pulled its handle. Miraculously, even if the passenger’s seat was crushed from the front, its door still worked, and she managed to open it. However, there were several large twigs pressing against it, and Arturia understood: if someone kept it open, then it was going to be possible to use it, but not otherwise. The air inside the vehicle was already starting to become foggier due to the smoke, and she did not waste any time in doing more thinking.

Pushing her feet against the damaged metal, she opened it wide enough for the girl to pass through it, and then lifted her in her arms, showing her the opening.

But the girl grabbed her hand – she wasn’t oblivious.

“What about you?”

Arturia shook her head.

“Go!”

It was an order, and the girl did not dare argue further. As soon as she had left the car, unable to hold the heavy door open any longer, Arturia’s feet gave out and she fell back against the driver’s seat, feeling bruises erupting on her skin at the sudden movement.

She distantly heard the girl calling her father, and felt relief at knowing that they had been able to reunite. She also thought she heard her own name being called, but she had probably just imagined it.

Looking around herself, she considered her options. Her situation was not looking good, and she felt her eyes beginning to fill with tears due to the smoke.

She crawled back against the rear, knowing that the doors were not going to open, but she had seen that the windows were larger in the back. Looking for something heavy enough, she grabbed a piece from the other fallen seat – the piece where the head was supposed to rest – and she aimed it at the window.

But before she could smash it, something from the outside slammed against it with force. It broke into pieces, and she rapidly shielded her eyes from the flying splitters. Crawling and beginning to feel the fatigue caused by all the heavy things she had had to move, she went towards the window, passing over the glass and feeling the shards scratch her skin.

In that same moment, the car swayed, and its weight began to shift and move towards the same window that had just been broken, right as she was about to exit through it. A sudden, stronger exploding sound coming from the engine also made her heartbeat increase.

The opening in front of her was becoming smaller by the second, as the car slowly rolled in that direction, and Arturia could see her route of escape getting smaller and smaller–

A pair of arms reached inside, grabbing her and pulling her out rather roughly. One hand was behind her neck, to keep her head secure, and the other under her legs, holding her by her bare thigh, since her dress had skirted up and was now torn in various places.

As Gilgamesh held her tightly close to him, he stood up and took several swift steps away from the car, before lowering himself to the ground, in the grass, with her still in his arms, and they both turned their heads to look back. Less than a couple of seconds after she was out, the entire vehicle collapsed on itself with a sickening sound.

His crimson eyes met her green ones.

“You could have died,” he said, his voice rough, unsteady, oddly altered.

Arturia coughed, not having fully realized how much dust and smoke she had inhaled inside the car, and, in instinct, she passed her arms around his neck, holding herself closer to him.

She had indeed been about to be crushed – but he had pulled her out just in time.

She felt how he did not stiffen for even a second, and instead tightened his hold on her. They were sitting on one side of the road, a bit away from the crashed vehicle, and she closed her eyes after a few tears washed the smoke out of them. She was very aware of his hold around her, and suddenly, he was kissing her temple, murmuring – or rather hissing – something against her skin that she could not hear.

She separated herself from him slightly, blinking to clear her gaze and looking up at him to hear what he was saying.

“You are a thoughtless, selfless fool, Arturia…!”

She shook her head, slightly dazed. Her eyes darting to the side, she could see from the corner of her eye that the injured man was embracing his daughter, and she could hear the sirens of an ambulance approaching from the distance.

She quietly answered him, “I am glad the passengers are safe. If we had done nothing, they would have died, Gilgamesh. And I’m _fine_.”

She met his eyes defiantly, and his reaction took her by surprise.

“You, you _devastatingly_ stubborn woman,” he growled, holding her more firmly to him as he hungrily smashed his lips against hers.

It was by no means the first time he kissed her, but there was such urgency in it that Arturia did not resist and – for the first time – immediately responded, pushing back against him and passionately kissing him back.

He could be angry with her as much as he wanted, but she did not care… right now, she could not forget that she had almost lost _him_ as well.

After all, she had not been the only one in danger. He had gotten to the collapsing car, broken the window seconds before she could do it, and pulled her out of there, putting himself in danger as the smoking car rolled exactly to where he had been standing a few moments earlier. She had honestly not expected such a purely selfless act from him.

Her mouth opened against his, letting him in – _inviting_ him in – and he took the offer immediately, pressing closer to her and kissing her more insistently, his tongue tracing hers first in a fleeting caress and then with more persistence.

A coughing fit forced her to pull away, but if she had thought that it would make him pull away as well, she was proven wrong.

He held her to his chest as she got rid of what she had inhaled, refusing to release her, and she could feel his fingers lightly caressing her arms, shaking off the glass splitters still attached to her skin. She became also aware of the fact that his other hand, which had grabbed her thigh to pull her out of the wreckage, was still very much in the same place. He was not taking advantage of it by moving it upwards, but neither was he moving it away.

She was surprised to realize that she did not care much. Being in his arms like this, it felt fine. More than fine, actually.

As the police and the ambulance arrived, the injured man and his daughter were immediately given medical treatment, and as Gilgamesh related what had happened very succinctly yet precisely, he made sure that Arturia was given a check-up as well. She had minor cuts on her arms and legs because of the glass shards, a few other bruises and she had inhaled some smoke and dust, but she was otherwise fine. The paramedics recommended she rest and drink a lot of water during the following couple of days.

When everything was done, they went back to his car, where they remained sitting silently for a long while, only sometimes interrupted by Arturia’s coughing fits.

He did not start the engine though, instead gazed into the distance for a while before addressing her suddenly.

“You never think about your safety, or just your _wellbeing_ , do you, Arturia?”

It was then that Arturia realized that Gilgamesh was _angry_. Not just angry, he was glaringly _furious_.

He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, making the horn honk loudly, not holding back any of his frustration.

“Do you see what you do to me? Can you not spare a single thought to taking care of your safety, to make _sure_ you are safe? You drive me completely and utterly _crazy_ , Arturia!”

She glared in his direction, not pleased in the least about this development.

“Gilgamesh, I am joining the police to do these kind of things – it’s my _job_ , and I don’t see anything wrong with it!”

His eyes flashed, and he was suddenly leaning much closer to her, forcing her to pull back in instinct, and he took advantage of it to cage her against her seat.

“You are too dangerous… _far_ too dangerous…!”

He came even closer, backing her more against her side of the car, and then leaned in to kiss her neck, slowly going up to give a low chuckle against her ear.

His movements, while determined, were slow and measured, and Arturia could feel that this was some kind of test on his part. A test for what, she did not know, but she did not care.

She squared her shoulders, ignoring the slight pain she still felt in her bruised arms, and firmly met his eyes, holding his gaze even as his hands came up to her neck, finally going around it in a not-so-veiled menace.

He broke their gaze to lean down, breathing on her skin.

“Don’t you see, Arturia? My hands, they’re here, on your perfect, small neck… if I decided to squeeze, you would be dead within seconds, and the threat you pose to me would be gone.”

She knew that it was no idle menace, for she could feel that he was serious. She had no idea why the agent in her didn’t react more strongly, but perhaps it was her extensive knowledge of Gilgamesh that allowed her to keep her cool.

While he was far from joking on this matter, she knew – she just _knew_ , even if she also knew that she was taking a risk – that he was not going to hurt her.

As calmly as possible, trying to ignore her pounding heart, she replied, “If you gave me a strong hit in that same point, from behind, then I would be dead in _less_ than a second.”

His head snapped up again to stare into her eyes, his whole body pressed more firmly against hers. He was angry once more.

But she was angry as well – she was done being tested, she was not a toy he could play with. She could understand him wanting to see where she was standing, but she had the right to do the same.

Rage was aflame in his eyes.

“Is this some kind of game, Arturia!? Is this somewhat _funny_ to you?”

“Is it to you?” she shot back in the same tone. “I already risked dying today. You can’t hope to scare me with the same threat!”

Those words made his hands leave her throat and drop down to her sides, but he did not lean away from her.

“Scaring you isn’t my intention,” he haughtily informed her, an odd edge in his tone. “I want you to be truthful towards me.”

“But I am–”

His cold laugh made her stop, and his stare at her was slightly disdainful.

“In all the months we have been going out together, never _once_ did you initiate a physical contact of any kind or even fully accepted one. You never refused me, but you never truly responded either.”

He came closer, menacingly, like a predator. “Yet today… after risking your life… you kissed me back.” His eyes studied her, a feverish glint in them. “Do you need to feel your life on the line to show your emotions so openly? Do you need the threat of death to react to my touch? _Do you want me at least half as much as I want you?_ ”

His lips were just a millimetre apart from hers, every breath he took she could feel on her skin, and she almost didn’t dare breathe, just in fear of losing the contact… yet he pulled back as his eyes narrowed perilously once more. “Or were you just too full of adrenaline and emotions and would have kissed simply _anyone_ –?”

“I would have done no such thing!” she hotly interrupted him. Her eyes were aflame with emotions, and every thought about her life, her mission, anything, left her mind.

She only cared about the crimson eyes of the man in front of her, boring into her soul. “I _wanted_ to kiss you!”

Again he came closer, his eyes flashing. He wanted answers.

“You’ve _never_ kissed me before, Arturia, you’ve _never_ reacted to my kiss like that, so what changed?”

The truthful reply came out before she could control herself.

“Because I realized that if I had died, or if _you_ had died, I would never have been able to see you again…!”

Before he had a chance to react, she finally leaned forward, away from her seat and into his arms, and vehemently pressed her lips to his in a rough kiss.

He did not stop her at all – on the contrary, he pressed back with insistence, and enclosed her body against her seat once again, but this time with a completely different kind of intensity. Arturia could not stop her own body from fervently seeking contact with his, and felt shivers run down her spine as his arms surrounded her more securely to pull her closer to him and deepen the kiss.

She was caged between him and the car’s seat, enveloped in his arms because of a long, hot kiss she had initiated herself, and it felt _wonderful_.

But as his insisting touch went to tug at her clothes, especially near the injuries on her arms, her senses came back to her as pain flashed through her body. She abruptly tore her mouth from his, attempting to separate them.

“Stop,” she panted. “Gilgamesh, please stop.”

She did not want to go any further; she wanted to kiss him more, goodness, she did, but it physically hurt her to do so, as she wasn’t exactly in top shape after the car accident.

His movements did indeed stop, and he met her gaze. The amount of passion and the storm of intense emotions in his eyes were so powerful that Arturia felt herself tremble visibly. Never had she felt what she was feeling in this moment, in Gilgamesh’s arms.

His eyes were also searching hers intently, and she was relieved to see them flicker down to her injuries, showing that he understood immediately why she had pushed him away and would not misunderstand her this time.

She didn’t want to contemplate the reasons why it was so _important_ to her that he did not misunderstand.

Tentatively, she brought her hands up to touch his face. She could feel his surprise by how his body abruptly tensed up at her strange, gentle gesture, and how his eyes widened fractionally, while his movements froze.

She was not going to be intimidated though. Her eyes were limpid and she stared at him unabashedly as she touched his cheek. She felt it, inside herself, pooling in her lower abdomen, making her feel suddenly light-headed.

 _Desire_.

And he… he just stared back at her as she touched him, and he let her.

“I think I want you,” she acknowledged, realizing it herself as she said it. She abruptly retracted her hand, knowing that a quiver had run through it; however, she refused to lower her gaze. “But not now.”

As if on cue, she coughed again, and that forced her to look away from him and cover her mouth to allow the rest of the dust to leave her lungs.

She felt him suddenly lean away from her, turn on the engine and manoeuvre the car to go on the road again.

“I’ll take you back home,” he said, very curtly, but she could not fail to recognize the odd tone in his voice as honest _concern_ , and any kind of feeling she had of missing him so close to her was replaced by an unfamiliar warmth.

Their plans for the weekend clearly cancelled, the drive back to town proceeded in pure silence.

At the first red light they met, however, he turned towards her slightly, finding her eyes and holding her gaze again.

“Make no mistake, Arturia: I’ve wanted you for far longer than you can even imagine, and now that I know you share the same desire, nothing could make me hold back except for the fact that you are injured, and you need rest now.”

Looking away from him, she concentrated on her heartbeat, wishing for it to stop being so violently fast. It was definitely just physical attraction, she told herself.

It _had_ to be just physical attraction.

It _couldn’t_ be anything else.

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They did not talk for the rest of the ride, remaining completely silent. She didn’t have anything to say, and she was, to her own loathing, somewhat scared.

She did not know where she was standing – both in her feelings about her relationship with Gilgamesh and in her mission.

She had _underestimated_ them both.

However, she was brought out of her perplexing thoughts when they found the street to her apartment closed, with several fire trucks and police cars blocking the passage.

Arturia couldn’t hold back an exclamation of shock when she saw, even from a distance, the high flames in the evening sky. And she had a feeling, a horrible feeling, that she knew exactly where they were coming from.

“What on earth–”

She was only mildly aware of Gilgamesh’s own exclamation, because as he turned the corner, she could now clearly see the location of the fire.

As she had dreaded, the firefighters were struggling their hardest to contain and slowly extinguish the flames that were coming from her apartment complex.

Fire surrounded the entire building, and the upper floors – where her own apartment was located – were already burnt down to ashes.

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	4. With power that can break the darkness, like ancient magic (Rider, part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had initially planned for this story to be just seven chapters, but as they were becoming too long, I decided to split some of them, so that the entire fic will be longer.  
> Hope you enjoy ;)
> 
> Thank you so much to MimiBlue for her wonderful editing!!!

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As soon as Gilgamesh turned off the car, she immediately jumped out and ran towards the apartment, ignoring him as he attempted to call her back.

She approached what little remained of her apartment complex, but was stopped by the firefighters and police who weren’t allowing anyone to get through. When she explained that she lived in those exact apartments, the glances of pity she openly received were enough to confirm, even before they told her so explicitly, that her house was gone, together with all her possessions.

The officers attempted to reassure her, telling her that for a few days she could stay at the police station, since she did not have an insurance on the apartment and obviously needed immediate shelter at least for a while.

Although she knew that their offer was meant kindly, she did not offer a reply and walked away a few steps, to be able to organize her thoughts on her own.

Everything was gone. Her apartment, the place where she had been living as a civilian, together with every single thing she owned, had been burnt to ashes. It was certainly a shocking development, and it was going to cause her a large amount of trouble, especially when regarding a place to stay for the following weeks, but it was thankfully less serious than what the firefighters had assumed.

When it came to the items inside the apartment, she could feel the loss of very little, since everything had been set up for her civilian cover and she usually only spent time there in order to sleep. Never having had an attachment to material objects – except perhaps her Saber katana – she did not have anything valuable she could truly miss, and that included everyday requirements.

After all, just the evening before she had packed several things, planning for the long weekend with Gilgamesh, and therefore she had more than enough clothes and necessities for a few days. Aside from that, she also had to keep in mind that there was a bank account in her name – her fake one, but that was beside the point – with enough money to be able to sustain herself for a considerable number of years.

Given that earlier in the day she had inhaled quite a bit of smoke and dust, along with the fact that she needed rest, all she had to do was look for a room in one of the hotels in the area for the next couple of nights, before going in search of a new apartment. Therefore, she didn’t have anything to worry about for her immediate situation, as it was a problem she could solve easily.

What instead _did_ worry her, and quite a bit more than she knew to be acceptable, was the _reason_ for the fire that had destroyed her apartment.

There was very little doubt in her mind about the fact that it had been an arson. Her apartment complex was modern and secure, built expertly and with very few inflammable objects around, which made it very unlikely for it to catch fire without an explicable reason. The people living in the apartment next to hers were on vacation, and the ones from the apartments below had had ample time to evacuate. From what the firefighters had hinted at and from what she had been able to see from the street, her apartment had been the only one to suffer such irrevocable damage.

In the morning, before leaving, she had checked everything carefully; she knew she had not left the gas on and she had even gone as far as to turn off electricity completely for extra security. That only made it clearer that it could not have been a simple incident, since it had targeted her apartment with such sinister accuracy.

The question now was – who was behind it?

And the answer to that question was difficult.

One likely supposition could be the Holy Grail; it was entirely possible that they had found out about her secret identity as an agent. However, it would have been odd, because usually the Holy Grail attacked _people_ , not places.

Also, she couldn’t forget that Gilgamesh was part of the Holy Grail and, if they had wanted her dead because of her identity, he had had plenty of occasions, on this very day in fact, to kill her; it would have been odd to say the least if he had instead simply burned down her apartment.

To be honest, it could also be possible that – given that he was one of the bosses of the organization – he had planned to both kill her and burn her apartment, but had changed his mind on the way. Once again, it was unlikely, because even though she had not actively focused on it, she had seen his expression when they had noticed her apartment complex surrounded by flames, and there had been no trace of deceit on his face.

It could also be that other criminals she had brought to justice, and not necessarily the Holy Grail itself, had recognized her as an agent – even under her fake identity – and tried to kill her by burning her house, not knowing that she had not been there on this specific day. But once again, it was rather unlikely.

There was also the possibility of her identity _not_ having been exposed at all. In her current civilian life, she was certain that, while she had no close friends at the police academy, there was however no one who disliked her enough to want her dead, nor anyone who would gain any significant benefit through her death.

Unless…

Unless, maybe she was considering the incident from the wrong perspective.

She had immediately assumed that whoever had burnt her apartment had meant to kill her – but what if that _hadn’t_ been the objective?

She had after all left in the morning, closing everything carefully, in such a way in fact, that anyone who tried to peek into the place would have immediately realized that she was going to be away for a while.

The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that it had to be true: whoever had destroyed her apartment must have _known_ that she wasn’t there.

Then again, _who_ could have done such a thing and, if the intent had not been to kill her, _why_ had they done it?

She had to consider the Holy Grail again. Even though their methods were much more direct and when they wanted to kill, they always killed without error, maybe they had burned her place to send her a message, maybe a warning of sorts.

But a warning for what? If they didn’t know her identity, there would be nothing to warn her about; if they did know it, then they would kill her instantly, without bothering to _send a message_. The way they had behaved with Lancer, brutally beheading him when they had found him out, was a clear reminder of that.

As she had considered previously, Gilgamesh had probably nothing to do with the arson. She knew that he was far from being an innocent person and he certainly wasn’t above killing, but burning down her apartment just to send a message? No… that wasn’t his style, and it wasn’t the Holy Grail’s style either. And she couldn’t think of a reason for which they would have decided to proceed in such an unorthodox manner.

Again, she drilled herself on whom could have wanted to either kill her, send her a message or simply cause her problems.

A hand was posed on her shoulder, and she whirled around abruptly, ready to hit the incautious offender with all her might – but she recognized his crimson eyes just in time to hold herself back.

Gilgamesh was standing in front of her. He was staring into her eyes as usual, but it was his odd expression as he addressed her that caught her attention.

“I saw you speaking to the firefighters. Is there anything that can be salvaged?”

She shook her head without a word, still studying his strange demeanour. In his expression she believed she could read some extremely tight-controlled anger, pensiveness and an unusual reluctance; but most of all, in his eyes she could read urgency and _worry_.

“Can you make any guesses about whom decided to burn down your place?”

Surprised, her own eyes – which hadn’t left him for a second – widened slightly. He seemed to be fully aware and in fact _convinced_ of the fact that it couldn’t have been a fire started by natural causes.

If she had still had the minimal suspicion about him being the one responsible for the arson, it was now a fear completely put to rest. His behaviour was not staged; he honestly wanted to know who had burned down her apartment, and he even seemed to have something or someone in mind as culprit.

Slowly, she shook her head.

“I don’t know who might have tried something like this; I don’t believe I have enemies who would do such a thing.” Then, remembering to act her part, she went on, “However, there is no proof that this was actually an arson.”

The look he gave her was sharp.

“You know that you don’t believe that for a second, Arturia,” he said pointedly. “Even without official confirmation, it’s impossible that this fire _wasn’t_ deliberately caused.”

She chose not to say anything else and, seemingly even more worried now – as strange as it was – he then bluntly told her, “You are coming to stay at my place for the time being.”

Had she been more in her wits, she would have blinked and gaped at his words, but since she was tired, preoccupied and still weakened by the earlier car accident, all she did was stare at him.

Then she finally replied, “Gilgamesh, I must have misheard you, for I don’t want nor need your charity.”

Very casually but also firmly, he continued, “You heard me perfectly fine. You’ll be with me at my house for the foreseeable future.”

Seemingly sensing her ready refusal – not that she was doing anything to conceal her objection to such a plan – he didn’t give her the time to say anything but gave a quick glance around, making sure they were not overheard.

Then he stared at her again, oddly sombre. “There is the possibility that your apartment was burned down because of your connection with me, therefore the least I can do is offer you another temporary home.”

This time, Arturia did gape at him. What on earth…? Had she heard him right? Had he really just…?

Was he– he was actually thinking that _he_ might be the reason why someone had destroyed her place? Why would that even be the case? And _why_ was he being concerned about it and offering her a place to stay just because of that?

Her expression clearly showed her disbelief, because he took a step closer, not breaking eye contact with her for a second.

“I did not tell you everything about my activities in my work, or rather, I didn’t tell you much at all. It’s very likely that being associated with me has put you in danger.”

Completely forgetting herself for a moment, she took a step closer to him in instinct and her words blurted out in a harsh whisper.

“ _What_ did you do, Gilgamesh?”

She immediately stopped herself after saying that, knowing that such an accusation was not going to sit well with him, especially if she wanted to make him tell her the truth. But to her surprise, he didn’t seem too offended, and it took her another moment to finally realize why.

She had just lost her house, and he was openly telling her that it might have happened because of him; it was actually quite _natural_ for her to burst out at that kind of news.

She managed to regain her focus and now considered his offer carefully, knowing that it was very unlikely that he would let her refuse in any case.

Gilgamesh wanted her to stay at his house, because he was _worried_. And given that he was worried, it might be possible to induce him to tell her more about his shady business, which he had just mentioned. After all, she – nor anyone in their right mind – would not be willing to share her living quarters with a person who might be responsible for the destruction of all her belongings, not unless he offered her an explanation.

Therefore, not trusting her voice to be steady enough for a reply, she only gave a slow nod of assent, and walked back to his car side-by-side with him. She only stopped to leave her contact to the police, who were going to let her know, during the following days, how the investigation was proceeding. Arturia didn’t expect anything productive to come out of it, but it was still worth a try.

During the car ride, Gilgamesh’s lips remained sealed, and he didn’t say a single word. Not that Arturia was feeling particularly inclined to indulge in small talk either; she was completely lost in her thoughts, only occasionally still interrupted by a brief cough.

The fact that she was going to spend a few days – or maybe more, she couldn’t estimate it at the moment – at his place was not really what was making her rack her brain so much. She was still trying to find a plausible culprit for the burning of her apartment.

It was indeed true that Gilgamesh might be right, after all. It was entirely possible that his obvious attachment to her had irritated someone else in the Holy Grail mafia – she assumed he had been talking about his connection to them, even though he still hadn’t told her anything about it at all – and they had tried to take her out. It was odd then, however, that the arson had taken place during the day instead of during the night, when it would have been far more likely for her to be at home.

Yet there _had_ to be the Holy Grail behind this attack. Who else could have–

A terrible thought occurred to her, and she felt her blood run cold. What if…

No, surely it couldn’t be. It _couldn’t_ be…!

 _Oh yes, it could be_ , her cold logic told her, in a tone remarkably similar to Natalia’s.

Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to control herself. Her quick mind refused to give in to the shock, and her years as an agent managed to make her keep her cool so that Gilgamesh wouldn’t notice her realization.

The thought was despicable, but there was no helping it. She could not put it past _Kiritsugu_ to give the order to burn her apartment to the ground, if he had a precise objective in mind to achieve through such an action.

It was in fact rather _expected_ for her boss to do something like that, if he had a reason for it. If she thought of _him_ as the perpetrator, then the fact that the fire had started during the day, while she was absent and while her neighbours were absent too, would make sense. Kiritsugu was ruthless and he would go to great lengths for the success of his missions, but he would not harm innocents if he could avoid it.

But if her suppositions were correct, then what could his plan actually be…? If he was at fault for it, _why_ had he done such a thing?

Oh – now that she thought about it… it was so _obvious_. She had just considered that he would go to great lengths to make the missions succeed; then what if he had destroyed her house with the precise intent of making her stay with Gilgamesh?

That was borderline absurd, and she mentally shook her head at herself. Why would Kiritsugu do something like this? He didn’t do anything if he wasn’t absolutely confident that it would work, usually, therefore–

Again she had to stop in her thoughts. She knew that it was almost certain that Kiritsugu was keeping an eye on the development of her mission, and it was entirely possible that he had seen Gilgamesh kiss her more times than she could count. Her boss had then probably made his calculations, and determined that this incident, leaving her homeless, could steer the mission a step forward, rather abruptly, yes, but also very efficiently.

Reaching this conclusion, Arturia had to admit that, as ridiculous as such a scenario seemed to be, it was possible – in fact, _likely_ – that it was the truth, for she had learned in the past years that her boss was more than capable of believing in such a reasoning.

She was careful to keep her expression composed, and using her hair as shield in front of her face, to make sure Gilgamesh could not see her, not even by chance, she held back a deep, shuddering sigh, exhaling only very slowly.

In order to capture the most important members of the Holy Grail, it seemed that things were soon going to worsen.

It was going to cost her more and more, that was inevitable; but how much else was she going to be able to sacrifice just for the sake of this mission?

…

…

…

Arturia had no idea that the reason Gilgamesh remained silent the entirety of the car ride was because he was making a careful decision.

It was now obvious to him that she was being targeted; he could no longer avoid telling her about his illicit activities, because lack of knowledge would not protect her, but put her in even greater danger.

Of course, they could not talk immediately as soon as they arrived at his large house. He swiftly showed her his spacious guest rooms, together with a private bathroom, which his servants were quick to ready for her, especially since, aside from the contents of the bag she had prepared for the weekend, she had no other personal effects. She was secretly extremely relieved to find out that he did not assume that she would share a bed with him.

It wasn’t entirely surprising though: earlier he had shown consideration for the fact that she was not in top form – she had cuts all over her limbs and she had inhaled smoke and dust inside the damaged vehicle – and he had obviously not forgotten it. She had also seen his eyes land on her every time she coughed; his _concern_ about her health made her feel slightly uncomfortable, as it was something she was completely unaccustomed to.

There was however only so much stalling they could do before it was time to have their long-delayed conversation. In spite of her tiredness, Arturia was not going to go to sleep until she had a proper talk with him _and_ she received a full explanation about the reasons for which he believed that her closeness to him had caused the arson.

In a very uncharacteristic move for him, he did not take out his beloved wine before starting to talk with her. She knew that he enjoyed conversations the most when he could sip on one of his favourite drinks; not having one was really unexpected on his part. It was even more unexpected when he provided her with a bottle of water, reminding her that the paramedics had recommended she drink a lot.

After leaving her bag and light jacket in the guest room, she followed him to his study, which was rather far but thankfully easy to locate, so that she was not going to have any problems in finding her assigned room on her own again.

Neither of them sat down. He didn’t even walk to the other side of the desk to put the heavy piece of furniture between them; he just stood a few steps away from her, even though his eyes were not on her at the moment, but lost into the distance.

Arturia felt herself tense. It was doubtless that he was going to tell her more about his life, and that meant – the realization only made her body stiffen some more – that he was about to open up to her, probably admitting about his involvement with the underground mafia.

Perhaps having the means to record this conversation would have been useful, but unfortunately, she did not have any.

Her heartbeat increased, and she knew that her wariness was plain to see on her face. She had never been a good liar, which was a major reason why most of her fake persona had been based on her real one, so that she could avoid saying outright lies in her time with Gilgamesh; however, she still needed to act her part convincingly.

In the occasion at present though, there was no need for her to mask her emotions, because for once they were not only fully genuine, but also plausible for her fake identity.

She did make an attempt to hold herself in check nonetheless, because she had to acknowledge that she was perhaps running ahead of herself, as it was entirely possible that he wasn’t going to tell her anything about the Holy Grail after all. He knew she was training to become a policewoman, so he would maybe only mention a few illegal activities without exposing the entire underground organization.

Steeling herself, she simply stared at him and waited. Enemy or not, target or not, he was about to place his trust in her by telling her more about his secrets, therefore she would respect that and listen.

Slowly, almost lazily moving his head slightly so to be able to bore into her green eyes with his firm crimson ones, he began, “You know that my business is mainly centred on oil companies, but I don’t believe you are familiar with the unrelenting competitiveness of that world.”

He kept studying her face keenly, ready to take in her every reaction. “To make sure my business flourished, especially in its beginning stages, I have sometimes made use of underhand tactics, methods a person like you would never consider using.” A brief ghost of a smirk crossed his features. “I’m fully aware of the fact that you don’t approve of them, but as you know very well, I am not the same as you, and I do not care about your disapproval.”

His hard stare was making it very clear that he knew that they were never going to see eye to eye on some matters, but he was also making it obvious that such a thing was not going to stop him from telling the truth. And Arturia agreed and appreciated this; even if they were different people, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t understand each other’s choices. Therefore, her expression did not give him any indication that she wanted him to stop.

“I feel no shame for having been deceitful, but I am forced to admit that I was slightly reckless in not taking care of matters on my own.” His brow furrowed slightly. “I made use of the work of others, and that was not my smartest move.”

Arturia did not blink and simply waited, even as her mind started to connect the dots and already attempted to draw a full picture.

“Given your job, but even if you weren’t enrolled in a police academy, you must have certainly heard of a secret criminal mafia, located in this town, that enjoys being known as Holy Grail organization.”

She jerked her head forward, in a rather awkward nod, but she could not help it, because her heart was now beating even faster than before, and she could hear its dull thrumming in her ears.

However, his following words astonished her so much that she almost dropped her mouth open in shock.

“They are a disgusting, despicable and _unworthy_ organization. I made use of them a few times in the past; I allowed their interference, using it in my favour and to my advantage, but I was never associated with them, no matter how much they insisted.” He was lost in his thoughts, and it was probably for the best, since Arturia was still trying to make sense of what she had just heard him say. “I don’t care about their activities being illegal, nor do I care about their threats to attempt to make me join them; I never cared about making them my enemies… until now.”

His eyes focused back on her, and she knew that her expression was as confused and flabbergasted as she was feeling in this moment.

“Normally, aside from insisting offers or empty threats, they wouldn’t dare try anything, but those inferior, disgraceful mongrels _are_ getting desperate.”

His hand suddenly clenched, and she realized, with a shudder she managed to hide, that he was furious – more furious than she had ever seen him, even more than he had been earlier when they had fought in the car.

“They have tried to _kill_ you,” he hissed, and all her fighting instincts screamed at her, because she could recognize a man about to lose control. “You already risked dying once today, and if you had been at your apartment, you would have been burned alive. They have crossed _every_ line.”

Arturia didn’t say anything for quite some time, because she was having trouble in fully registering what she had just found out.

There had to be a mistake. This was impossible.

The man in front of her was supposed to be one of the _bosses_ of the Holy Grail – yet now he was claiming he wasn’t even _part_ of it?

Something was wrong, but she wasn’t going to receive any answers if she didn’t ask, and she had kept silent long enough. Straightforwardness was her best option at the moment, since Gilgamesh was obviously in the mood for talking – well, unless his anger took over, of course.

“Gilgamesh… are you telling me the truth? From the way you talk, I would be more inclined to think that you are lying to me and that you _are_ part of the Holy Grail mafia. You’ve basically just openly stated that you are a criminal.”

She knew how dangerous it was to accuse him in such a way, but she wanted him to say it, to admit it. Hearing him confirm, to her face, that he was truly a criminal, was probably going to make her overcome her completely unreasonable attraction to him. Knowing it for sure, hearing it from him, was going to enable her to do her work and bring him to justice without hesitations nor regrets, which she despised having at the moment.

But he did not reply the way she expected – hoped, or even _wished_ – him to, because he shook his head firmly.

“I have indeed taken advantage of their information on a couple occasions in the past, mostly to obtain blackmailing material on people I didn’t have the time to manipulate adequately, but I am not part of the Holy Grail and I never was.” He still looked full of contempt, but thankfully no longer close to exploding. “Their methods are lowly and degrading and overall extremely unpleasant. I don’t see why join them when the services they offer disgust me; if I need anything that you would consider illegal, I usually have my own means.”

She could not stand for such an argument, and took a sudden step forward as she protested vehemently, “That doesn’t matter! What you do is _still_ illegal, and therefore as wrong as what they do!”

He shook his head, his eyes flashing.

“There’s no right or wrong, Arturia, there’s just perspective. I care about the profits of my industry, and some of them can only be obtained through some small arrangements that you would consider unlawful. That doesn’t mean, however,” and his expression hardened, “that you have the right to put me on the same level as those mongrels.”

She shook her head as well, slowly, her green eyes unable to avoid showing all the contempt she was feeling, but she was taken aback when he laughed harshly.

“Why, do you really think, Arturia, that the so-called lawful side is _right_? The police you are striving to enter commits those ‘wrong’ acts as well, but they excuse them by always claiming they are on the side of what is right. I told you – there is _no_ wrong or right. Those are just the labels you use to _justify_ the acts that are committed.”

“You’re mistaken!” she yelled, taking another step forward, feeling anger bubbling inside her, but his following question made her freeze.

“Have you ever killed, Arturia?”

She stilled, and her heart skipped a beat. The answer to his abrupt question was far too easy for him to read on her face, without her needing to utter a word.

He took a step towards her as well. They were now much closer than Arturia would have preferred, but she was too focused on the conversation to care.

“And did you justify your murder by claiming that it was for the _right_ reasons? Did you think that being on the side of the law, of the police, excused it–?”

“No,” she interrupted him, her voice harshly cutting, forcing him to stop. “I’m not as simple as you seem to believe me to be, Gilgamesh. I murdered people, but because I had no choice. I never attempted to justify what I did. I have that blood on my hands, and I will never be able to wash it away, with no amount of excuses.”

She wished she could hit herself, and repeatedly so. How could she be this reckless? How could she so openly admit her crimes to him? How could she so openly talk about her life to a man she was supposed to become able to convict? A man who was supposed to be, and who had just admitted to being, a _criminal_ _?_

He stared at her long and hard, without uttering a word for a long while, seemingly weighing her words and deciding how to interpret them. She refused to add anything else, leaving him the possibility to reply; she had said far too much, she had disclosed far too much, and she was not going to say anything else.

Oddly enough, he seemed, to her relief, to choose not to question her more about her past – about the murders she had committed – but on the _meaning_ of those particular actions of hers, and he startled her by suddenly raising his voice.

“Then you should be able to understand, Arturia! Acts cannot be divided into categories the way the _law_ seems so intent on doing!”

“Not all acts, that is true,” she shot back, surprising even herself when she acknowledged the truth in his words. “But many can. Many things _can_ be sorted through morals. You refuse to stand by any kind of morals, Gilgamesh, yet you obviously do have a code you hold yourself to, otherwise you would have worked with the Holy Grail! Even if you disagree with the lawful division of morally acceptable acts, you _do_ have a division yourself! Don’t dismiss other people’s principles just because they differ from yours!”

Her heart now beating faster than she ever remembered it doing, she took a few last steps closer to him, yet not as firmly as she would have usually done, and stood only a breath away from him, without touching him but staring straight into his eyes.

“Tell me the truth, Gilgamesh,” she was dismayed at hearing her own voice crack slightly, and she forced herself to regain her composure during her brief pause. “Are you _truly_ not involved with the Holy Grail organization?”

His burning crimson eyes, so clear to her at this close distance, didn’t make even the slightest attempt at looking away, and no matter how desperately she tried to, she could not find any deceit in those orbs as his reply came, slowly and carefully.

“I do not like being questioned on what I say, but for you, I will repeat it. I _have_ made use of the Holy Grail’s collected information a couple of times in minor deals in the past, but I have never been involved in it, much less been part of it. My activities in the business field aren’t clean, the mafia has tried to make me join and occasionally still tries to keep communicating with me, but I have shut off any real contact with them several years ago.”

Hearing the honest seriousness in those words, seeing so clearly that Gilgamesh was not lying to her, Arturia could feel all her decisions, all her resolutions and all her certainties about her mission break inside her.

She tore her eyes from him, aware that if she didn’t he was going to be able to read her expression far too easily, and took a few abrupt steps back, towards the room’s door.

This was too unexpected to keep her composure.

“You… have given me a lot to take in,” she carefully said, her tone as even as possible but her hand, holding the water bottle, still shaking slightly. “It’s been a long day. After inhaling smoke and finding out that my apartment burst up in flames, all this information is a bit much.” She turned away and reached the door swiftly. “Goodnight.”

Not giving him the time to say anything, she closed the door behind herself, fleeing from the room as fast as she could.

Once she reached her assigned bedroom, she rapidly checked that there was no one else around and locked herself inside.

…

Finally alone, she took several long, deep breaths, and let herself fall on the bed in a sitting position, her mind in absolute turmoil. She was going to need to take a shower, because of all the dust still covering her after the car accident in the afternoon, but she didn’t spare it more than a fleeting thought.

She had a much more important problem to deal with now.

Gilgamesh Babylonia was not one of the bosses of the Holy Grail organization; in fact, he was not involved in the mafia in the first place.

Her mission to become close enough to him to make him tell her the truth had succeeded, and brilliantly so – if only it hadn’t all been pointless.

She was still shocked. He _wasn’t_ part of the Holy Grail. He _wasn’t_ the key to bring it down.

Everything was wrong. All the information they had on him was _wrong_.

Kiritsugu must have made a mistake–… no, that was impossible. It was more likely that he had been deceived. But it was still something huge for him to be wrong about.

Of course, this was true only if she could believe his word. Gilgamesh had openly admitted in the past that he took pleasure in playing people, yet even though she couldn’t explain why, she felt completely certain of the fact that he had not lied to her. He truly _wasn’t_ part of the underground mafia.

Now so many of his cryptic sentences made more sense. He had done things that were illegal, and that was probably the reason why he had known something about Caster, but since he was not part of the Holy Grail – contrary to Caster – of course he had been so specific in telling her that he was not associated with those people ‘any longer’.

And that meant that all these months, with a fake identity and a fake life, had been wasted, and she could not help being disappointed.

However, at the same time, she could not stifle, no matter how hard she tried, a guilty feeling of _relief_.

Gilgamesh wasn’t a good person and there were illegal activities he was involved in, but he _wasn’t_ a criminal. That meant that she was not going to have to use him; she was not going to have to kill him.

Yet even though the feeling was strong, she firmly forced herself to stop thinking about her relief any longer.

Then… what was she going to do now?

Perhaps the fastest and best course of action would be to abort the mission right away, since she had just discovered that her target was _not_ her target. She should bring him to justice for his own crimes and then move on to real targets, people who were actually part of the Holy Grail.

Then, if what she needed to do was so painfully evident, why was she feeling so conflicted about it? Why was she feeling so _reluctant_ _?_

To be fair, perhaps aborting the mission wasn’t the best idea. Gilgamesh may not be part of the organization, but he certainly knew about the members in it, possibly more than she did herself. By getting close to him, she had obtained many precious details, but there was certainly still more to find out, no matter how much her chest ached strangely whenever she thought of him simply as a mission target from whom she needed to extract information.

But back on focus: since she had left his study so abruptly, he had obviously not had the chance to tell her everything he knew–

Oh. She had almost forgotten… according to Kiritsugu’s reports, he was one of the Seven – Archer. Yet he had not told her anything about that, not even mentioned it.

Could it be that, same as his involvement with the Holy Grail, this piece of information was incorrect as well?

It was true that, from the rumours she had heard at the police academy, Gilgamesh Babylonia was said to be a dangerous person, but that certainly wasn’t enough to label him as Archer. She should find out whether or not that was true; that was something she should do while living in his same house. After all, Lancer, poor Lancer, had given his life in his attempt to take down the Holy Grail; she was _Saber_ , and she would not leave the work unfinished, no matter how confused and conflicted she was currently feeling.

There were indeed enough reasons for her to continue with her mission and stay with Gilgamesh, at least for the time being. _Reasonable_ reasons. She had many more inside her fast-beating heart, but she was not going to acknowledge them.

However, she was getting ahead of herself. The decision to stay or leave was supposed to be made by her boss – since it was extremely likely that her boss was the one who had manipulated the events so that she was now staying at Gilgamesh’s – but her boss could only be contacted through Irisviel.

Yet how could she reach Irisviel? Her entire equipment had been at her apartment, and it was all in ashes now. Kiritsugu’s instructions said that, in cases like these, when her methods of communication were compromised yet she was still traceable through civilian ways, she had to wait until they contacted her themselves, even if the matter was urgent.

Although she knew there were several reasons for which she should leave, she had too many other ones and even her personal wishes that were making her stay. Her considerations made her finally settle on it: she was going to wait for Irisviel to contact her.

About Irisviel–…

Arturia’s mind abruptly went back to the last conversation she had had with her friend before leaving. The white-haired woman had told her, her expression both serious and anxious, that not everyone was as they seemed to be.

Her stomach dropped as a thought suddenly hit her. Could it be, could it actually be, that Irisviel had _known_ …?

But if that were the case, how much? _How much_ had she known? Had she known that Gilgamesh was not part of the Holy Grail? And if she had known this much, _why_ had she not said anything explicit instead of giving her merely a few vague words? What had prevented her friend from telling her the truth? Irisviel had sometimes even gone against Kiritsugu’s wishes to tell her everything, anything she could need for her missions, and always as directly as possible.

Irisviel must have known, if not everything, at least _something_. Yet if she had, _why_ had she been so cryptic instead of direct?

It was useless to ask herself questions to which she was not going to find plausible answers. She had no choice but to wait for Irisviel to contact her, then she would find out, whether she liked the final answer or not.

Mind still troubled, Arturia didn’t even bother to change her clothes and instead simply lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling with an empty gaze, only uttering a few occasional coughs until sleep finally swept over her.

…

…

The following morning, she was glad to find out that her body felt rested and she didn’t have the continuous urge to cough anymore. On the other hand, her mind did not feel any less heavy than the night before.

Wandering around the house after drinking the entire bottle of water and finally taking a brief shower – she had trouble in finding her way to the kitchen and to the other rooms, since she only knew how to reach Gilgamesh’s office – she eventually found her host in one of the living rooms. She recognized it as the same living room they had fallen asleep in about a week before, when they had talked about their past, but she refused to pay that too much thought.

Arturia was having more than a few difficulties in finding any subject on which her mind would be able to linger without feeling overwhelmingly fatigued and confused, because all the revelations from the previous day were still weighing on her. His eyes that were always steadily glued on her when they were in each other’s presence were not helping in the least, either.

Perhaps her incoherency was too apparent, for Gilgamesh immediately ordered her to eat, drink a lot of water and then go rest some more. Usually, she would have felt annoyed and even insulted by his behaviour, but in this occasion, she gladly jumped on the possibility to be alone again.

She needed to think. Too many things were jumbling around in her thoughts, often even mundane ones, and she simply did not have enough presence of mind to hold a conversation that would be composed enough.

But the entire day and the following one spent on her own and pacing in the room assigned to her did not help in the least. She remained alone, making sure she drank water regularly and occasionally turning on the radio to listen to the news – the only thing that felt familiar at the moment – but she did not reach any satisfying conclusion about what to do next.

The next morning, as it was a Monday, she determined that it was best if she resumed her routine. Not finding Gilgamesh, she simply asked one of the members of the staff to please inform him that she had gone to the police academy for her classes.

It was true that she only had afternoon ones, but she was going to go to shooting practice before then, as she desperately needed to distract her mind. And when coming back in the evening, she was going to do her best to speak with Gilgamesh without avoiding him any longer.

…

…

…

Gilgamesh was sitting in his office on the other side of town, when he was delivered a handwritten, anonymous note by mail. He frowned when he saw it; he knew of only one person who had once told him they would use that method of communication, but he also knew that that person wouldn’t have bothered contacting him if it wasn’t serious.

His frown deepened as he read through the laconic, seemingly innocuous but rather lengthy message. He knew that the person who had written it was usually rather blunt in face-to-face talks, but seemed to be extremely cautious in messages. It was in fact the first time he had received a message from that person, and Gilgamesh knew what it meant: the person in question was dead. He had been told that if a second one didn’t immediately follow the first message, it meant that things had gone awry.

The contents were vague at the beginning, but they were mostly about the mafia becoming more determined, and then detailed the task force’s plan to send an extremely deadly secret agent, who was going to approach him and make his life much more complicated, even though very little additional information was given about this agent.

Gilgamesh read the message once again, attentively, and then burned it. About the words on the task force, he wasn’t particularly worried, as he doubted there were any agents smart enough to attempt to approach him in a hostile fashion. He considered the rest more carefully instead, as it was a warning he shouldn’t dismiss carelessly.

The person who had written the message was dead, and that meant that the Holy Grail was on the move, likely coming after him with renewed aggressiveness. They wouldn’t dare try to kill him, for they were still trying to make him join them, but they were most certainly going to become more forward in their desperate attempts.

The Holy Grail as a whole was an extremely heterogeneous group of people, who mostly either despised one another or ignored one another, and taken both on their own and as a group, were rather ineffective. However, there were a few leaders among them, very capable ones, and they were the ones who presented the most danger. Gilgamesh was aware of the fact that, no matter how dangerous they were, they were not going to have the guts to come after him directly – but there was Arturia now.

He had told her the truth about his connections to the underground mafia, because he had had no choice. They had burned her apartment to the ground; it had been a clear sign of their interest in threatening her life, and he could not endanger her more by keeping her in the dark.

She was part of his life now, whether she knew it or not, whether she liked it or not, and that made her an incredibly perfect target for anyone who wanted to do something as outrageous as blackmailing him. And the Holy Grail had every intention of doing so.

His eyebrows knitted together. Arturia was at his house for the time being, nothing was going to happen to her while she was there, but he wasn’t going to be able to keep her there forever. Inside the mafia organization there were some people who were absolutely inhuman, and they were the ones who could pose a serious threat. Gilgamesh had seen one of them in action, and he had found new heights of disgust in observing the sheer _enjoyment_ that person possessed in killing, especially in _watching_ people die. The blond man did not concern himself with everyday deaths, but that person had been sick to the core in a way that wasn’t even interesting to observe.

If that kind of lowly beings, who wanted Gilgamesh to work with the Holy Grail, ever got near Arturia–

The ringing of the office phone line brought him out of his reflections, and he narrowed his eyes at the number he recognized on the screen.

He replied curtly, “Speak.”

“Archer,” said Iskandar Macedonia’s cordial voice on the other end of the line. “How wonderful to reach you!”

Gilgamesh didn’t say anything. This was Rider, and while he was not as revolting and gruesome as the other bosses in the Holy Grail organization, he was one of them nonetheless, and was one of the people who could pose a problem as well. Incidentally, he also hadn’t contacted him directly for a few years, which meant that this could prove to be threatening.

Completely unfazed by his lack of a reply, the man on the phone continued jovially, “I would ask how you are, but I know that you’re doing well and even having company! It’s quite unusual to see in fact anyone enter your unapproachable house!” Gilgamesh’s grip on the phone tightened. “To be honest, had I not seen that pretty, blonde woman enter your house together with you with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it!”

Gilgamesh tensed even more. Rider knew about Arturia’s existence. Rider had _seen_ her.

Could he, perhaps, even have something to do with the burning of her apartment…?

With the calmest voice he could muster, the blond man said, “If this is all you called me for, feel free to simply send an email next time.”

Completely unperturbed by his comment, Rider went on, “She looks very innocent though, far too innocent and naïve to be around someone like you, Archer! Although I’m sure that she was much less innocent after spending the night with you, huh?” Rider chuckled into the phone. “And of all the people you could find, she is one who attends the police academy! She walked there so calmly this morning, so perfectly unaware…”

Abruptly, Gilgamesh went rigid. Arturia was _at_ _home_. She was at home… wasn’t she?

“Now, the deal is simple, Archer.” Rider’s tone became more practical. “If she means anything to you, anything at all, I believe you won’t like her to be taken by my men. Therefore consider my offer, which I did send you by email as you seem to prefer–”

Not even letting him finish, rage pulsing through him, Gilgamesh threw the phone against the wall, watching the device shatter into pieces.

His heart beating wildly, he blindly reached for his personal cell phone and called Arturia.

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	5. My feelings alone are all that I rely upon, a wish that will awaken the light (Rider, part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There could be disturbing death scenes in this chapter.  
> Thank you so much to MimiBlue for her patient beta work!!!

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The lessons were not interesting enough to make Arturia forget about her mentally taxing dilemmas, but they did provide a much-needed distraction, as well as a chance to begin to collect herself after the still lingering shock from all the recent revelations.

In fact, she was feeling much calmer afterwards, and therefore decided it could be beneficial to take a walk to go back to Gilgamesh’s house. She had taken a bus in the morning, but since the weather was fine and she felt like exercising a bit, she preferred walking.

Taking out the phone that she usually turned off during class, she was surprised to find out that she had over two dozen missed calls from Gilgamesh.

Frowning, she pressed the button to call him back, walking briskly through the streets.

He picked up immediately.

“Arturia! Where are you? Are you still at the academy? Near the house?” His tone was agitated and he sounded breathless.

Startled by his vehement alarm, she was quick to reassure him, “I’m walking back to the house right now – Gilgamesh, what happened?”

Without even realizing it, her pace had increased, strangely getting an ominous feeling from his urgency.

She heard his exhaling and was astonished at realizing that it sounded as if he was _relieved_ , and then he curtly replied, “It was nothing important.”

He did not add anything else as explanation, instead simply inquiring, “What about the academy, anything interesting today?”

It was extremely odd of him to ask her about what she learned there, but it was clear that he was not going to elaborate on anything else and wanted to change the subject, therefore meaning to keep the conversation going for some reason, unwilling to end the phone call.

She wouldn’t have usually let it go so easily, but this once, she decided she might as well humour him. After all, she was still too focused on the last conversation she had had with him to be her usual self.

“Well, today was mostly theory,” she explained, still walking swiftly. “We received long explanations about the safest way to drive when having injured people on board, or when following other cars, and all the physics of accelerating and stopping. It was interest–”

It happened too fast, too suddenly.

A person with his face covered by a hood bumped into her from the left, almost making her drop her phone and roughly pushing her to the side. On her right, another person equally covered by a hood was waiting for her with a raised arm and, as she was forced towards them, rapidly plunged a full syringe into her right shoulder, emptying it at the same moment.

Immediate excruciating pain coursed through her, and Arturia could not stop herself from letting out a loud cry of shock at the sudden agonizing sensation. Three people were now surrounding her, attempting to seize her hand that was still holding the phone.

She knew for certain that Gilgamesh had heard her scream, because he was deafeningly yelling on the other side of the line, his panic unmistakable.

Wait – _panic_?

But she pushed the thought out of her mind as she felt her wrist being crudely grabbed, and responded by freeing herself with a rapid movement, pulling the syringe out at the same time. Whatever substance had been in it, she could already begin to feel its effects. By the way her vision was blurring and how she slowly felt her strength leaving her, she believed it to be not a lethal poison but a drug, one that would probably spread quickly through her system, and that meant that she had to act fast.

The thugs were trying to grab her again, and she struggled, managing to kick one of them and knock back another one, and then landed a solid punch on the third, knowing by the cracking sound that she had at least broken the person’s nose. She felt her head swimming though, and knew that she was not going to be able to get away from them, especially when she felt others, who had just arrived, grabbing her as well.

“Let _go_ of me!” she hissed through clenched teeth, more loudly than she had wanted, but it was no use. Her strength was already leaving her as the substance’s effects became more potent.

She looked around quickly, seeing that other than the first three assailants, there were now at least six new ones – too many.

Her phone, which she had still been clutching, finally fell from her hands as she fought to keep her eyes open, while her legs gave out and she crumpled to the ground.

The last thing she heard was the anguished tone of Gilgamesh’s voice as he kept calling her name through the device lying next to her…

…and then everything became black.

…

…

…

The first thought Arturia had when she felt her consciousness coming back to her, was that civilian life was to blame for having succumbed to the attack. In her days as an active agent, just some brief months before, she would never have been taken by surprise with a syringe in such a manner; her obliviousness was a glaring weakness she shouldn’t have allowed herself to fall victim to.

Instead of recriminating on that, however, she should try to find out the identity of her captors, since they had obviously not meant to kill her. She kept her eyes closed for a while longer and remained immobile, using those few moments to attempt to analyze her situation.

The place where she was felt a bit cool, but not cold, and the floor seemed to be made of wood. She was lying down on it, on one side, her clothes were still in place but her ankles and her wrists were tightly bound together behind her back. She was feeling very thirsty, and she also felt her right shoulder extremely stiff and pulsating hurtfully, but she dismissed it, since she had endured far worse in her training with Natalia, and the unpleasant sensation was not a problem as long as she could still move her limb.

However, to make sure she was actually able to move in spite of her discomfort, she would have to stop pretending being asleep, and if her captors were around, they would notice. Since no one was talking around her, and therefore there were no conversations to overhear, Arturia opened her eyes, taking care to do so slowly.

The place wasn’t as dark as she had expected, even if it wasn’t particularly bright either; it was an unfurnished room, with four men sitting on the floor, against a wall, their faces mildly covered by hoods, while she was lying down facing them. All four were armed.

The one nearest her met her gaze and brought out a dagger swiftly. Arturia noticed that they all seemed very comfortable with weapons, which meant that they were not to be underestimated.

“She is awake,” he announced, his voice sounding surprisingly young and even slightly nervous. The three others immediately snapped back to attention, observing her intently, while the one who had spoken knelt next to her and pointed the dagger at her throat. She noticed that, while he obviously looked at ease with the weapon, his hand shook slightly.

“Try anything we don’t like, and you’ll regret it,” he told her, staring straight at her with more firmness than she had expected. He had dark eyes and dark hair; he was extremely young and, while he obviously knew how to use his dagger, it was likely that he had very little practical experience with prisoners.

Arturia kept her face expressionless, but frowned inwardly. He had not threatened to kill her, at least not directly yet, and that meant that they did not want her to die; therefore, she could probably make an attempt at risking her safety by asking questions.

“Why did you kidnap me?” she probed, slowly, her voice coming out raspy but rather steadily as she held the gaze, to her captors’ surprise. She did not show any fear nor did she tremble, and they were clearly unprepared for that.

The dagger was pressed more firmly against her neck, without cutting the flesh but completely ready to do so at any given time. However, it wasn’t the one close to her who replied, but one of the ones sitting, his face still hidden.

“You don’t matter to us, sweetheart, so don’t sweat it. If things go as planned, you’ll be back home by dinnertime.”

If she hadn’t been starting to become impatient by the waste of time, it would have actually been humorous to realize that they were treating her like a child. The fact that they did not want her dead meant that they wanted to use her against someone, and she could make a very easy guess about whom it was.

“I see, so you’re trying to lure Gilgamesh into a trap,” she casually commented, ignoring her dry throat and the steely edge of the knife.

It was a wild guess, but it was likely to be correct. Furthermore, by keeping them engaged in conversation, she could begin to work on the ropes around her wrists without getting their attention to her hands moving behind her back. She had already figured out what kind of knots they had used, and she would have estimated less than a couple of minutes needed if she had been on her own; having to free herself stealthily though meant at least three times as much. She therefore attempted to make sure they kept focused on the conversation.

At her words, one of the sitting men began, enraged, “This isn’t a trap, you little…!”

The covered one, sitting as well, hit his arm to silence him, his hidden eyes never leaving her, and he replied, “You are not an airhead as we expected. Gilgamesh isn’t entirely foolish then.”

“So if it’s not a trap, you believe Gilgamesh will come looking for me,” she shot back, unfazed.

It was too easy, Arturia thought. Whenever she guessed something correctly, all four looked slightly uncomfortable and stiffened, so as long as she kept guessing right, she was going to find out a lot.

“You are obviously working for someone else,” she continued, her tone calm and her eyes running over them, noticing their stiffening again. “Probably a boss you respect, not fear, given your behaviour.” Another round of stiffening. “So you’re likely to be part of the Holy Grail,” she concluded, her tone flat even as her throat still throbbed from lack of water.

“Just shut up,” the younger man with the knife growled, and she could feel her neck’s skin almost being cut as he pressed the knife more firmly against her. There was still some strange hesitation in his manner though, making her wonder whether he was in this situation voluntarily.

The covered man stood up abruptly, taking even the other ones by surprise, and pushed his hood back. Even though she had never seen his face before, Arturia recognized him instantly by the bloodied mess – now dried up, which told her that several hours must have passed – that he had in the place where he was supposed to have his nose. He was obviously one of the thugs who had attacked her and whom she had hit while trying to defend herself.

“Gag her,” he spat, his eyes narrowed. While the man with the knife did not move from his position, clearly hesitating, another one rolled his eyes, took a piece of cloth and began to push it into her mouth. She briefly stopped trying to free her wrists to make sure they didn’t notice how much progress she had already made.

Suddenly, the previously covered man launched himself forward and kicked her side, hard. She felt pain shoot through her as her body doubled over in shock, but she was grateful to realize that the bone had not been broken. The man had been wearing mountain shoes, with metal on its sides, therefore she was rather certain that she was going to have superficial cuts and probably a large bruise forming, but thankfully not anything worse than that.

The man with the dagger dropped it and, with the other two, immediately restrained the one who had kicked her.

“No! The boss ordered to leave her unharmed!”

“The bitch broke my nose!” the man hissed back, sending Arturia a glare, but did not attempt to free himself.

Still seething at her, he went on, “You may not be an airhead, but that doesn’t make you any less of a fool! Gilgamesh is flippant with his pleasures, taking what he wants and the way he wants, he will fuck you and then throw you away – so don’t attempt to act smart with us, missy, because you _aren’t_ _!_ ”

Arturia was taking advantage of the momentary agitation to continue working on the ropes around her wrists, and she was almost done. She stared back at the man she had injured earlier – she assumed it had been hours before, but she had actually no idea how much time had passed – and considered his words.

It was nothing she didn’t know already: Gilgamesh himself had readily admitted his past sexual liaisons, and that was what Kiritsugu had told her about his behaviour as well. His playboy reputation was clearly known among the Holy Grail as well, for she had no doubt that the men who had kidnapped her were part of the organization.

She narrowed her eyes at them and, with a little effort, spat out the piece of cloth in her mouth, which they had not had the time to fasten yet.

“If you really think that he will just use me and then discard me, why did you bother kidnapping me at all? Do you really think he’d care enough about a passing pleasure to lower himself to deal with you?”

She knew it was dangerous to let them know that she was aware of the Holy Grail’s unsuccessful contacts with Gilgamesh, but she was trying to taunt them, to make them get defensive just as she finished freeing both her wrists and immediately started to work on the ropes around her ankles. At the same time, however, she was not making anything up, because while they mocked her, they _had_ deemed her important enough to kidnap her, since they obviously wanted something from Gilgamesh and were using her for that purpose.

What they were doing in order to catch Gilgamesh’s attention wasn’t impossible to happen; after all, she knew she had not imagined the note of panic in his voice when she had been on the phone with him. And she could not lie to herself about the fact that he had probably come to hold some honest regard for her, a feeling she reciprocated.

Besides, hearing on the phone that something was happening to her was bound to make him worry, at least a little bit.

Then again – the fact that _she_ knew this was one thing, but it was strange to realize that the Holy Grail believed her to be so important in Gilgamesh’s eyes too. It was even stranger to realize that they did not seem to want to kill her, especially since they were renowned for their viciousness.

The men were staring at her, in silence, mulling over her words, but she needed to keep distracting them as she continued working on the ropes, therefore she added, narrowing her eyes for emphasis, “Gilgamesh will not be able to get rid of me if he just feels like it.”

In that moment, there were shouts and loud noises coming from a clearly adjacent room, and that seemed to force the men into swift action. They all came to shove her onto her back, forcing the piece of cloth over her mouth and keeping it in place with their hands. Even though their closeness disgusted her, Arturia did not attempt to struggle, because the new position was perfect for her to continue unfastening her ropes without them seeing her.

Then she suddenly noticed that all four men were listening intently to what was happening in the other room and, when she started to listen as well, she realized that she _knew_ one of the voices.

It was Gilgamesh’s.

She stilled, for a moment even forgetting to keep untying the last rope around her ankles, and held her breath as she listened intently. Gilgamesh was obviously furious and he was heatedly arguing with someone.

“ _Where is she!_ ”

Gilgamesh’s voice was very controlled, but no one would have been able to miss the raw _anger_ in it, and his tone rose slightly as he yelled again, “She’s been gone for an entire day now – _where is she_ , Iskandar!”

Iskandar? Arturia’s eyes rapidly ran over the four men still holding the cloth over her mouth. _This_ was why they had seemed so used to dealing with weapons: they worked for the famous politician Iskandar Macedonia, who was also Rider and rumoured to be one of the bosses of the Holy Grail, and one of the less violent ones.

She should have actually been able to guess it on her own; these people couldn’t have been with someone like Berserker, for example, because even though his nature was shady, he was renowned for his use of bombs, while she hadn’t seen any around. Knives and daggers were something Iskandar – or rather, Rider – preferred using, and she should have therefore been able to reach this conclusion on her own.

But why had _he_ abducted her?

The answer came with his reply. She had never heard his voice before, but she could not mistake its raucous, loud and even jovial timbre as one belonging to a person used to giving orders and being obeyed.

“Ah, but Archer, think nothing of her, she’s fine! Now focus on what I’m offering you instead, and make your considerations!”

So _this_ was indeed the reason she had been kidnapped: Iskandar meant to use her as leverage, to blackmail Gilgamesh.

But such a thing was absurd, Arturia immediately realized; Gilgamesh was never going to tolerate it, and if this had truly been Iskandar’s intent, it meant that he had seriously underestim–

There was a sudden dull, heavy sound, which Arturia recognized as that of a body collapsing to the ground. Her heart stopped in her chest for a second at the thought that it could be _Gilgamesh_ ’s body…

But a moment later, she heard his voice again, and while she exhaled slowly, the men around her stiffened; after having relaxed, she felt herself go rigid once more as well. She knew that he was a truly dangerous man, but perhaps, before this moment, in hearing his tone, she had not realized how much.

And not just that: she also realized that, given the way Iskandar had addressed him, Gilgamesh truly had to be one of the Seven – he _was_ Archer. Kiritsugu’s information had not been wrong, at least regarding this specific point.

“I will not ask again, Rider. _Where. Is. She._ ”

Iskandar’s voice was much more serious – and wary – now, and Arturia was able to guess that one of his people had probably received some form of attack from Gilgamesh. She took advantage of the fact that the men surrounding her were distracted by the intrusion to work on the ropes around her ankles again.

“Gilgamesh,” he seemed to speak more slowly as he switched from Archer’s title to his real name, “there is no need for such brutality. She is unharmed.”

Arturia felt her stiff shoulder and the rapidly forming bruise and cuts on her side pulse painfully in disagreement, but since she was still kept silent by the cloth, she focused on making her fingers work on the knots that kept her prisoner as fast as she could.

Gilgamesh obviously did not know that she was so close, but she certainly was not going to keep quiet for much longer.

Receiving no answer, Iskandar continued, “We will return her soon enough. All we want is for you to collaborate with a couple of operations.”

“You lost every chance for collaboration even before you decided to manipulate me,” his tone was dark and steady. “You lost it the moment you set your eyes on her. Your attempts have been testing my patience too much, but threatening her life was the last straw, first with the arson and now by kidnapping her.” Gilgamesh’s voice was a calm, deadly hiss. “If she’s truly unharmed and _safe_ and you release her _now_ , I will _consider_ sparing your life.”

The silence that stretched was conveying the shock everyone must be feeling, and Arturia saw the men giving her strange looks, obviously re-evaluating her. The man with the broken nose stared at her side, perhaps realizing that having injured her could prove to have awful repercussions – even fatal ones.

“Gilgamesh, surely you jest–”

“If this dead man isn’t enough to prove to you how serious I am, then be mindful of my words,” he interrupted him brusquely. “I will not stop at _anything_ until you tell me what I want to know.”

There was that ominous silence again, and Arturia could feel that the last knot in the ropes was finally loosening.

“I could respect you as a man, Iskandar,” such words were so surprising coming from Gilgamesh that everyone froze. “But in this moment you are Rider, and you are threatening _her_ life. If you thought that I would ever tolerate this offence, you were, and are, nothing but a fool, so be prepared to _die_.”

The silence this time was brief, until the sound of someone standing up could be heard, immediately followed by another body falling to the ground with a muffled scream.

Again Gilgamesh’s cold voice could be heard, and Arturia understood that one of Iskandar’s men had tried to attack him, only to be severely injured, if not killed.

“It seems that you haven’t understood what the _real_ terms are here, Rider.” Arturia could almost imagine him smiling in a sinister way as he uttered those words, and in that same moment, she finally managed to get rid of the last knot of the rope. “If she’s in any way injured, even just a scratch, _I will kill you_.”

The tone was one of a man who was going to deliver on his promise without hesitating, and Arturia couldn’t hold back a shiver, before collecting herself and, with a strong and sudden jerk forward, pushed the four men off her.

Bringing herself to a sitting position with a single, fluid movement, she took the ropes she had removed from her wrists and ankles and threw them immediately around the necks of the two men closest to her. She pulled firmly, but stopped before strangling them, only making them pass out.

She then used their knocked out bodies as leverage to push herself up while delivering two strong kicks to the third man, hitting him in the chest and making him fall on the floor.

The fourth – the young one – jumped towards her with a loud growl and a knife in hand, but with more anger than sense. She let him come closer, dodged at the last second and grabbed his wrist, forcing him to release the knife as she twisted his arm painfully behind his back, making him cry out in pain.

He was forced to his knees and she brought her fingers to his pressure points, making him pass out instantly as well. She was mildly aware of some noise coming from the other room, but she had still one assailant to take care of and she therefore did not allow herself to get distracted as she released the younger man’s limp body.

Not for the first time, she wished that for this fight she had her katana with her, the one that identified her as Saber, for she missed its familiar weight as she fought off her opponents. But she had been forced to leave it at her boss’s the moment she had accepted the mission, and she had no idea where it could be at the moment.

The last man who was still conscious had stood up from the floor and was fumbling with his belt, obviously trying to retrieve a weapon. Sensing the potential danger, Arturia swiftly found the fallen knife and picked it up.

She didn’t do this a moment too early, because the man – the one with the broken nose – had just extracted a gun from his belt, and was clearly meaning to aim it at her.

“Die, you awful bitch!” he yelled at her, bringing his gun into position.

Arturia did not hesitate, and threw the knife straight at his heart, not missing her mark. If she hadn’t trained with Maiya and Natalia, perhaps she would not have reacted as quickly in delivering a killing blow, but she had learned enough to know that sometimes remaining alive depended only on who stroke first.

The man didn’t have the time to scream as his lifeless form collapsed on the floor, but he did have the time to fire his gun before it fell from his grasp. It thankfully missed her completely, but Arturia could clearly hear how the room next to the one she was in had suddenly turned deadly silent.

They had obviously heard the sound of the struggle and the gunshot. She opened her mouth to say something, to have her voice be heard, but realized that she was unable to get a sound out of her lungs. The cloth pressed into her mouth had dried it up, and she cursed mentally as she rapidly reached for the gun and then straightened up to walk towards the door, wincing slightly as she did so.

She examined her side briefly. The clothes were torn in that point, exposing her skin, and as she had suspected, there was a large bruise forming, as well as several cuts marring her, but they were all superficial and, even though she had not realized that blood was seeping out, it wasn’t a deadly amount. Later she was going to have to clean and bandage them, but it wasn’t something urgent to do. She did however grab a piece of her torn jacket and pressed it against her side, to begin to dab the injuries a little.

Without any indecision, she walked to the door, broke the lock by hitting it with the pistol, and opened it abruptly. There was a dark, narrow hall, with another open door to the side, from where she could see light coming. Knowing that she would find Gilgamesh and Iskandar there, she reached it rapidly.

Gun in one hand while the other held the cloth to her injured side, she entered the room, but halted immediately. Most of Iskandar’s people were lying dead on the floor, but two were still standing, and when they saw her, they immediately tried to attack her, perhaps not noticing the gun she was holding.

Arturia avoided the punch one was aiming at her and fired twice, rapidly; two bodies fell on the floor, going to join the others in a bloodied heap. She tore her eyes away from them, concentrating on the scene in front of her.

Gilgamesh was standing in the middle of the room, holding a gun to a red-bearded, tall man who was lying on the ground; she could safely assume him to be Iskandar. Iskandar did not look at her, much more focused on the pistol in his mouth, but the blond man snapped his head up to stare at her, while still keeping the gun in place firmly.

His eyes met hers, an intense look in them that spoke volumes, and Arturia wasn’t truly surprised at feeling a tremor running through her at that. She _was_ surprised at the immense feeling of relief that filled her when she saw that he was unharmed – well, aside from a few very minor cuts she could spot along his arms.

Gilgamesh’s eyes then scanned her form, lingering on the rope marks on her wrists, and the way they narrowed when he noticed the bloodstained cloth she was holding to her side was bone-chilling.

“Arturia.” His voice was tight, strained, barely holding his emotions in check, and the powerful note in his tone as he pronounced her name made her almost widen her eyes when she felt her body reacting as if it was _drawn_ to it. “You’re not unharmed. What was the cause of your injury?”

She fought to bring out her voice, knowing why he was asking her such a thing. It came out raspy again, but as she was extremely thirsty and she had apparently been over a day without drinking anything, it was to be expected.

“They kicked me after tying me up,” she said bluntly once she was able to produce a sound.

Burning crimson eyes focused on Iskandar again, who did not even blink and merely glanced in Arturia’s direction before looking back at the man holding a gun to his mouth.

“Your men injured her,” Gilgamesh said slowly. “I warned you not to let any harm befall her. You shouldn’t have trusted anyone, because your men are your responsibility, and they _injured_ her.” A pregnant pause. “I gave you a deal, and I won’t go against my word, Rider.”

The red-bearded giant’s eyes flashed, but he still held Gilgamesh’s gaze.

“So be it, Archer,” he replied resolutely, clearly accepting his fate.

Arturia did not move, watching the scene unfold, knowing that even though she was the one who had been kidnapped, this was between the two of them.

“You weren’t Enkidu, but as you could have been worthy of my respect, I can almost wish you hadn’t tested me, Iskandar,” came the blond man’s unexpected and emotionless acknowledgement.

The man on the floor made the effort to nod, but the next moment Gilgamesh’s eyes turned murderous. “However, you tried to use Arturia as a piece of chess to manipulate me. I won’t mourn you.”

Without another word, he pulled the trigger.

Not sparing the last Rider another glance, he immediately turned towards Arturia – and they stared at each other, not moving from their spots.

She had never been one keen on open displays of affection. She was an orphan, and couldn’t remember her parents, much less being physically close to them. She sometimes hugged Irisviel, but because Irisviel initiated it. Maiya and Natalia had played with her body in much more intimate ways, without giving her a choice in it, and that had left scars on her, scars that she probably didn’t even fully acknowledge, but they had never made her feel the impulse to be close to anyone.

But now…

Her wrists and ankles were slightly sore because of the tight rope, the bruise on her side was pulsing painfully, her right shoulder was still a bit stiff and the aftereffects of the drug were making her feel some lethargy. Yet all she could focus on was the leap her heart made in her throat when she looked into Gilgamesh’s eyes again.

Almost stumbling slightly, she took a few steps forward tentatively… and then just ran towards him.

She met his body, her arms went around his neck and she was hugging him, holding him, _clutching_ him to her almost with abandon. It took her a while to realize that he was embracing her as well, returning her gesture without hesitation; in fact, he was holding her possessively, with something _desperate_ in his actions.

She took several deep, shuddering breaths, trying to calm herself down. After the close meeting with death she had had herself, witnessing the way Gilgamesh killed had been something deeply terrifying – yet also something she could _understand_.

It was even stranger then that all she wanted was to be so close to him, especially since she had been away from him just for one day, and after the last she had heard of him had been on the phone right when she had been abducted.

There was a lot to be considered now; perhaps they needed to talk about the reason for her kidnapping, and perhaps they needed to make sure that Rider was truly the one behind the burning down of her apartment, as Gilgamesh had mentioned but she personally doubted.

Perhaps she also needed to think carefully about how to proceed with her mission, as things were now completely out of her control.

Surely it didn’t need to happen now though.

She did not know how much time passed, but she didn’t truly care, simply remaining in his arms, feeling the contours of his body and breathing him in. In the end, however, she separated from him, staring into his eyes more steadily than she thought possible.

“You didn’t tell me you were Archer,” she slowly murmured, her voice still hoarse.

He leaned down, picking up a strange, long weapon, made of the same material Arturia remembered her katana being made of. It was something like an arrow, but with a handle and which could therefore easily be used as a sword; it must be the object that identified his belonging to the Seven.

Noticing her eyes following it, Gilgamesh nodded briefly, before giving her a reply.

“It wasn’t worth mentioning,” he said shortly.

He then seemed to be studying her intently, as if to judge her reaction to what he had just said. He appeared oddly pleased when she simply nodded back, accepting this new information calmly.

Seeming unwilling to let go of her, he kept holding her hand as he leaned forward and used his strangely thin sword to smash a strange whip that was lying next to Iskandar’s body, and which Arturia deduced must have been Rider’s weapon.

“The Rider class has ended,” he muttered curtly, confirming her suspicions, before questioning her, “Your captors?”

“Most of them unconscious, one dead,” she replied detachedly. She had been an agent for too long to allow killing to affect her outwardly, but she couldn’t and wouldn’t talk with ease about the deaths she had caused, especially after just killing two other men and witnessing Rider’s murder.

She was taken aback when he simply accepted her words the same way she had accepted his about being Archer, and then almost jumped when his hand went to remove the cloth covering her side, now almost completely soaked with her blood.

His eyes darkened once again at seeing the extent of her injuries, making her stiffen with sudden wariness. He was a dangerous man, her instincts told her that, but her heart was refusing to listen to her voice of reason.

“You need medical treatment,” was all he said though. His hand still hadn’t left hers, and he guided her out of the strange building, which she realized was one of Iskandar’s, one he obviously used for his secret traffics with the mafia.

She was however too tired to pay it proper attention, her fatigue coupled with the blood loss and the remaining effects of the drug suddenly crashing down on her, and she barely managed to remain awake as he drove her to the hospital.

She knew that they were not going to call the police and at least this time, she knew there were valid reasons not to do so. The amount of things that had happened was too complicated – not to mention, too ambiguous – to be explained, and it was unwise to give the rest of the Holy Grail the excuse they needed to intervene in this matter.

In some ways, she felt guilty about it; she had a degree in law, she had always believed in the justice system there was. But as she had started to recognize recently, her rigid ideas on morality had begun to shift ever since she had trained with Natalia and Maiya; later, hearing about Lancer’s death and then getting to know Gilgamesh had influenced her, making her think and reconsider, and now… now she couldn’t control it anymore.

She had changed, she knew it now for certain. She hadn’t become like Kiritsugu, nor had she become like Natalia or Maiya, nor had she become like Gilgamesh, but she did no longer believe that the law was necessarily the right side. Her former views had _had_ to be changed; sometimes, acting outside of it was inevitable, and sometimes even necessary.

If only she hadn’t been so tired, she would have given it more thought, but at the moment, her fatigue was starting to become too apparent to do any more thinking.

Right before she fell unconscious, it occurred to her fleetingly – and it was a thought that mortified her – that she and Gilgamesh had not kissed at all.

…

…

…

She had probably fallen asleep for quite a few hours, because when she woke up, she was feeling much better; her injuries had been carefully medicated and the aftereffects of the drug had clearly worn off. There was a new, small needle mark on her arm though.

Upon looking around, she found out that Gilgamesh was in the same room, but was looking out of the window, immersed in his thoughts. Her movements however made him turn towards her immediately, and he did not try to stop her when she easily stood up from the bed.

Looking around, she realized that it certainly wasn’t a hospital room.

“This is a private clinic,” Gilgamesh explained, as if reading her thoughts. “The doctors gave you fluids through IV, as you were dehydrated. Are you feeling better now?”

Disregarding the strangeness of the question itself, she nodded firmly, then reconsidered.

“I’m still a bit thirsty. I wasn’t given any water at all.”

His eyes seemed to flash in both anger and pain once again, but he did not say a word, simply handing her a bottle of water, which she drank in full, taking however small sips as she did so. Right before she could finish the bottle though, she put it down and stared Gilgamesh straight in the eye.

As unbelievable as it was, she had understood why he was still so furious; he was angry with _himself_.

“It wasn’t your fault, Gilgamesh,” she told him, her tone unwavering.

His crimson eyes patently showed that he had his own thoughts on the matter, but he only informed her, “One of my servants was a _rat_. He told Rider when you left the house to go to the academy.”

She pondered that, and then asked, her tone cautious, “Where is he now?”

Gilgamesh’s eyes were no longer murderous, but they did have a hard glint in them as he replied, “Dead.”

She had expected it, and repeated, more forcefully, “It wasn’t your fault, Gilgamesh – and I’m fine now.”

He obviously still didn’t believe the first part of her sentence – the second part probably neither – but he only gave her a nod. Then he took her hand once again, firmly.

“Let’s go home, Arturia.”

…

…

…

The large mansion was silent as they made their way inside. All Arturia could focus on was however her fast-beating heart.

She had been such a fool, for she had not been behaving like an agent during the _entirety_ of the mission.

She had not been rational about getting close to her target; her feelings had been too strong for it. She had come to care deeply about Gilgamesh, but before today, she had not realized how much.

And now… it was too late.

A sudden movement made her turn to face the man standing next to her.

“Come with me.”

The words themselves were commanding and forceful, but his tone was not. Gilgamesh had extended his hand towards her, was staring at her and was waiting.

Arturia knew that the room next to the one they were in was his bedroom, and she knew very well that in his bedroom there was going to be very little talking.

She knew what would happen, and she knew that everything in their relationship would change. If she took his hand, it would mean that she was accepting him, fully and wholeheartedly.

As she had found out both on her own and from others, no one had ever had such access into Gilgamesh’s life, and from the intensity in his touch and her own reactions to it, ones she could feel deeply inside herself, she knew that the attraction was far deeper than simply physical.

It was a bit too late to second-guess herself, even if she had actually wanted to do such a thing.

She had now a free choice to make, and they both knew it.

Even though she was dazed from everything that had happened and everything she had found out during the past few days, she was lucid, and she would make her decision fully conscious of what she was doing.

If she took his hand… she would be accepting him. As a man.

Did she want to?

Slowly, she finally took a step forward, ignoring the tension she could feel erupting between them – between their skin, between their hands, between their _bodies_ – with that gesture.

And she took his hand.

...

…

…

…

…

...

Irisviel’s dead body lay on the ground, horribly twisted in an almost unrecognizable shape, splayed in a rapidly widening pool of blood.

The dark-haired man spared her mutilated form nothing more than a brief glance, but it was enough to make him lick his lips depravedly.

He brought his attention back to Maiya, whom he was holding up against the wall with his blades, nailing her to the concrete, and he watched, in fascination, how blood – in a lighter shade compared to Irisviel’s – gurgled out of her mouth once he slowly made his last blade pierce her neck.

He kept watching until she stopped gagging and gasping and the last living light disappeared from her eyes, before retracting his blades and letting her lifeless body join the white-haired woman on the floor.

Slowly, the man’s mouth contorted, and even though he had to cough, he smiled, widely, malevolently, his tongue darting out to lick his lips once again.

“Saber,” he murmured, drawling out her name, feeling a thrill run through him even though he was alone. “You are next.”

...

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…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For obvious reasons, when I post the next chapter I will also change this story's rating from Mature to Explicit.  
> Thank you so much for reading! ;))


	6. In the night when love captured your heart, unknown words are born (Archer, part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... last warning. This chapter contains explicit sexual content, in many different situations and with a little bit of angst involved. I hope you enjoy ;)
> 
> Thank you so much to MimiBlue for editing!!!

…

...

…

…

...

Silent and pensive, Arturia stood next to the window, not even bothering looking into the darkness outside, since she wouldn’t have seen anything anyway.

Gilgamesh was asleep in the large bed behind her, and she had not a single piece of clothing draped over her body to cover herself – unless the bandages counted – as he had undressed her carefully but swiftly just a few hours before.

She couldn’t however remain in bed with him when she had such serious thoughts to consider.

There were Seven people who had particular skills and particular weapons, people whose identity was somewhat a thrilling mystery for civilians to whisper about.

Lancer was dead.

Caster was dead.

Assassin was presumed to be dead.

Now Rider was dead as well, for she had been a witness to his passing just a mere few hours before.

Berserker was supposed to be in hiding with the Holy Grail mafia, but who knew at this point.

And she… she herself was Saber, and she had just spent a good part of the night in having sex with Archer.

She was a complete and utter failure as an agent.

Her mission had been to become close with him, seduce him and get information out of him. And oh, when considered in a literal way, it had worked _perfectly_. She had gotten far more information from him than she actually wanted to hear and she had become far too close with him – but she had not _seduced_ him, she had _not_ lured him to her bed.

She should have aborted the mission as soon as she had found out that he wasn’t her target, yet she had chosen to stay instead. It was true that she had had the – rather weak – argument of wanting to find out more about the members of the Holy Grail from him, but…

Arturia turned her head slightly to stare at the man in the bed, and she felt her heart constrict in her chest.

It was too late now, she could not change things anymore. She could no longer change the fact that she had developed deep, unconditional feelings towards the man she had just slept with.

What was she going to do now?

…

…

When they had entered his bedroom, he had wasted no time in starting to undress her. He had been mindful of her still healing injuries and the bandages in various places of her body, yet it had been inevitable, as he had slowly gotten her naked – by ripping piece after piece off her – for him to see the many scars running all over her body.

She had seen and felt him touch them, and he had frowned more than once – she was of course not going to tell him that most had been from the training with Maiya and Natalia, she had gotten very few out in the field – but she had not focused on that. She had been much more focused on _his_ scars.

Given that he had started to undress her, she had taken it upon herself to do the same with him, and she had had to make an effort not to stare shamelessly when she had exposed his chest.

She had seen naked men, but as corpses, mostly in anatomy classes or when Natalia had forced her to search dead bodies for hidden weapons. Nothing could have prepared her to the alive, blazing hot body that had later enveloped her in warmth and unending passion.

And most importantly, she had not been prepared to discover that he was at least as equally scarred as she was. His chest, his arms, his legs were muscular and well defined, but they had all a thin web of scars running over them, showing that he was not unaccustomed to fighting – and surviving.

She had expected the weight on her when he pinned her down on the bed, kissing her deeply as his hands had roamed over her body without neglecting a single spot. She had also strangely expected it when he was not particularly gentle in touching her, yet at the same time, he was not rough. He had not made the mistake of treating her like fragile glass and, while he was a surprisingly attentive lover – her body still hadn’t stopped tingling from the amount of sheer pleasure it had been given – he had not treated her with excessive cautiousness either.

In her training with Natalia and Maiya, Arturia had been taught about using the body in sexual situations to her advantage, to disregard her prudish reservations and make use of every asset at her disposal. Even though she had disliked it, she had been taught to consider sex a powerful weapon, a very dangerous one, because in spite of its undeniable pleasure, reaching orgasm weakened the body and created a vulnerability that was extremely easy to exploit.

She had however never been taught that, with a person who cared about her and about whom she cared as well – therefore with the _right_ person – it would feel so different, that it would feel good not just physically. So much more intimate. So much more profound. So much more meaningful. So exhilaratingly _perfect_.

The entire time, Gilgamesh had made sure that her mind was filled with nothing but _him_ , and she could not deny that he had completely succeeded in that aspect.

At first, he had used his fingers in a very similar way to what Maiya had done, and Arturia recalled having let out several quite undignified whimpers and moans as he had worked her up. Then she vaguely remembered seeing his pleased smirk as his body had replaced his hand between her parted legs while he was reaching for a condom. His crimson eyes had found hers.

A moment later, she had felt something hard, hot, and big push inside her suddenly, and she had been unable to stifle a wince of pain. There had of course been no barrier to break through, her physical training having rendered her too flexible for that, and she had been incredibly slick thanks to his expert stimulation, but she still wasn’t used to being stretched in such a way – as Maiya had only used fingers and tongue – and it had _hurt_.

She had felt everything pulse painfully inside her, and she had trembled uncontrollably for a few, tense moments, attempting to close her legs in instinct – a futile effort, since he was deeply buried inside her.

Given that they were so intimately connected and his face was so close to hers, she had been able to see his eyes widen in shock, visibly surprised at feeling how tight she was, obviously realizing she was in pain as well. She had been completely taken aback, however, when his movements had stopped and he had _waited_ , allowing her body to get used to the unfamiliar intrusion, and had contented himself with leaning over her and covering her with light kisses everywhere he could reach.

After a while, the pain had started to fade, and she had shifted slightly, trying to find a more comfortable position for the fullness she was still experiencing, and when she had heard a low groan coming from him, she had known that whatever she was doing was having a very strong effect on him.

Emboldened, she had tested it slightly, allowing her legs to part some more, and they had both moaned when that movement allowed him to reach deeper inside her, and he had taken it as his cue to finally move as well.

He had been careful of her injuries, always, even later when they had both reached their peak – several times – and even when he had firmly grabbed her hips to find a better angle inside her, he had taken care not to damage the bandages covering her skin.

That did not mean that he had not moved strongly and firmly together with her, inside her, _all over her_ –

Cheeks flaming, Arturia decided she had allowed her mind to be immature long enough, and made an effort to push her recollections from the previous night out of her thoughts. Thinking of how amazing it had been to have sex with Gilgamesh wasn’t after all going to bring any productive results.

As quietly as she could, she slipped out of the room to find the kitchen. She wanted to drink a glass of water, and perhaps being on her own would help her be more focused and decide what her next move was going to be. She needed to do so without the constant nagging thought of the fact that, while Gilgamesh had told her the truth about himself, she was still hiding secrets from him, secrets that were threatening to consume her, because she was unable to determine how to deal with them.

It was no use; concentrating and being reasonable was proving to be difficult even after she had drank water. Trying to distract herself was not working either.

Goodness, she was simply pathetic.

Out of options, she decided she might as well go back to bed. She hesitated only a moment before going to Gilgamesh’s bedroom; she very much doubted he would want her gone from his bed once he woke up, but she couldn’t be entirely sure.

If doing something like ‘discarding’ her – as Rider’s men had told her – was indeed his intention, she wasn’t going to stand for it; therefore, no longer hesitating, she slipped back under the covers, slowly sliding closer to him, wondering if she could risk touching him lightly.

She shouldn’t have been worrying at all, for a moment later he turned in half-slumber and passed both his arms around her body, pulling her to him firmly. He was still sleeping, thankfully, and Arturia felt safe enough in just shifting slightly so that her body was snuggled more safely against his.

She was where she had been supposed to end up at the beginning of the mission. She was in Gilgamesh Babylonia’s bed, with his arms surrounding her bare body, keeping her close to him as if she were the most precious person in his life. By all literal accounts, her mission could be considered a flying success.

Yet she felt horrible.

Not because she had passed her arms around him to hold him to her as well, nor because she was nestled against him as close as she could. No, she was feeling horrible because she shouldn’t have been feeling so genuinely _content_ to be in his arms like this.

She shouldn’t have been feeling so _safe_ when he pulled her even closer, completely flush against him, as he leaned into her neck and breathed in her hair.

“Arturia,” he murmured against her skin, still asleep, his lips caressing her across the neck almost inadvertently. “ _My_ Arturia.”

It took her everything she had, but she finally made the safest possible decision: she was going to pretend she had not heard what he had said.

It was the only way to protect what was left of her heart.

…

…

…

If there was some kind of proper etiquette to follow the morning after having sex with someone, Arturia had no knowledge of it. Not that it truly mattered, because she wouldn’t have followed it anyway.

She had thought it would be weird to sit at the breakfast table, wearing clothes, in front of a man she had seen naked just a few hours before but, while it was indeed slightly strange, it did not feel as unsettling as she had assumed. She could concentrate on the food – she was _hungry_ , after everything that had happened – and she could pretend Gilgamesh was not glancing at her as often as he actually was.

Upon waking up, he had stared at her in silence for a while, before inquiring after her injuries. She had been able to confirm that they were completely fine and, since then, he hadn’t pronounced another word. She felt rather certain, however, that he _was_ going to bring up the subject of their night together – in what way though, she still didn’t know.

She looked up at him, and found him staring at her once again as he sipped on his coffee. He was frowning, and she could see that he was about to speak.

“It was your first time having sex with a man,” he stated, even though the underlying question was undeniable as he observed her carefully.

She scrutinized him over her own cup, as if trying to decide what he was trying to get at with such a direct inquiry. She assumed it had something to do with the fact that he had stopped right after sliding inside her, obviously realizing that it was the first time she was stretched in such a manner.

She controlled her facial expressions as best as she could to prevent a shadow from crossing over them; she had expected him to talk about the previous night, but not like this, as a means to ask her more about her past.

Therefore, she gave a curt nod.

“It was.”

Her voice was firm, but there was a small edge in it, which indicated that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the subject.

He pressed on, his frown deepening slightly, “But it wasn’t your first time having sex.”

She did not offer a reply, but the fact that she had gone very, very still was more than enough of an answer.

Showing that it wasn’t going to be enough to stop him, he waited until he managed to meet her gaze again, before explicitly asking, “Arturia – what happened?”

To her astonishment, there was _concern_ in his eyes, and he seemed to be honestly worried. It hit her suddenly, that his worry was rather unusual, but there was an explanation for it. Did he… did he believe that she had had non-consensual sexual experiences in the past?

It was true that her behaviour could indeed have made him think that, but she hadn’t thought that he would care so much about what had happened to her.

Yet he had asked a direct question, and while she could try to avoid it by refusing to answer, that would mean leaving something unsaid and rather heavy between them. And, to be honest, there was already too much that was unsaid between them.

She was not in a relationship with Gilgamesh, or at least, not _officially_ , yet she had no desire to lie to him. At the same time, there was no possible way to tell him that what had scarred her in the past about sex had been because of her training as an agent, as she couldn’t give away her mission.

“I had sex with women,” she said at length, slowly, her tone carefully detached and making sure to avoid his gaze. “That’s why I wasn’t unfamiliar with it.”

She could feel him still staring at her, although she refused to look at him to be certain of it. The silence did not stretch for long though.

“Were you forced?” he asked, his tone controlled to prevent her from reading his emotions through his voice.

Again, she didn’t answer immediately, keeping her eyes on the cup in front of her for longer than necessary. Had she been forced into it?

“I wasn’t given a choice,” she finally replied, calmly, but still not meeting his eyes. “Therefore I suppose that yes, it was forced upon me.”

She finally decided she was sufficiently composed to risk meeting his gaze and was once again surprised when she saw that Gilgamesh was struggling, struggling _hard_ , to hold back his obvious rage. It took him several tense seconds, but he managed to control himself before staring at her intensely once again.

“Last night you weren’t hesitant about being with me though.”

“Because I wanted to,” she simply explained, and was able to hold his gaze with an ease that took even herself aback. “Because I wasn’t forced. Because it was my choice, and I do not regret a moment of it.”

Saying it aloud, putting it into words, came to her so spontaneously and so easily that normally her eyes would have widened in shock at the realization… but this time, surprisingly, that didn’t happen.

She had slept with him willingly, and she had admitted it to him. Disregarding any thought about her mission, about her life as an agent, this felt… natural.

Arturia noticed his lips tilting upwards, and was quick to avert her eyes. She was sure that if she saw Gilgamesh _smile_ at her, she would blush, and she was definitely not going to allow that.

Not looking at him appeared to be a very good choice, as it helped her see her situation from a more detached point of view – and she continued talking, without even realizing how blunt she was being.

“I had expected it to be shorter,” she observed, finding it easy to be this candid if she didn’t have to meet his penetrant stare. “And I did not expect you to focus on foreplay at all, nor to care so much about _mutual_ pleasure.” Even though she could feel a blush trying to appear on her cheeks, she fought against it to continue, her voice as casual as possible, “What was not surprising was the fact that you had condoms at hand though.”

She risked glancing at Gilgamesh’s face, and could clearly see that the fact that she had dropped the former subject displeased him; he probably meant to ask her more about her past, but she wasn’t going to indulge him in that.

At her last words, however, his expression became strange.

Before he could say anything, there was a brief knock on the large kitchen’s door, and then one of the servants came in. The man’s face froze, looking at them in complete surprise, and he immediately bowed deeply, apologizing profusely. Gilgamesh dismissed him with a few curt words, and the man left quickly, apologizing the entire time and closing the door as he disappeared.

The brief incident made Gilgamesh frown slightly, and he glanced at the door, before looking at her again.

Taking her aback, he told her, “While it’s true that I used to sleep around a lot,” he put an odd emphasis on the use of the past term, “I never brought anyone to my house, not during the day and much less to spend the night.”

Arturia was careful in not changing her expression as she sipped on what remained of her coffee. She was always slightly uncomfortable when he casually brought up his past flings, mainly because she knew she had become close enough to him to care and she disapproved of his former habits. However, she was also aware that it was a matter of personal choices and she had no right to pass judgement on his.

In the occasion at present, it wasn’t his reference to his past that made her furrow her brow though, but what he was trying to tell her with his last words.

He smirked slightly as he continued, “My servants have the right to be surprised, even though they know you were staying in the guest rooms, because they’ve never seen anyone around the house except for Enkidu and people I meet for work. Those are received only in my study though; I would normally never let anyone else in my home.”

His crimson eyes were studying her peculiarly, and Arturia recognized it as the same look he had given her the night before, right before kissing her senseless.

She couldn’t have said anything even if she had wanted to, because he went on, “I probably know everything there is to know about idle, casual, trifling relationships. Yet about real ones, I know nothing.”

She raised an eyebrow. Since when had he become so humble? And since when was she letting him assume so much without being sure about what he meant?

Warily, she asked, “Is this what it is then? A _real_ relationship?”

“Oh, yes, it is,” he replied, completely relaxed. He then tilted his head to the side, and gave a very strange, thoughtful smirk. “Why did you say that you _wanted_ to sleep with me?”

Surprised, eyeing him even more warily, she replied, “Because it’s true.”

“But _why_ did you _want_ to sleep with me?”

She considered, remaining silent for a moment, and then carefully uttered, “I don’t mind you seeing me naked, and I don’t mind seeing you naked either.”

He chuckled, his amusement openly displayed but not offensive.

“Is that all?”

“No,” she admitted almost immediately.

Giving her a smug smirk, he said, “Go on.”

Her cheeks _definitely_ weren’t reddening, she told herself.

“I… do not wish to continue discussing this subject.”

At this, he narrowed his eyes, something dark flashing through them. The way he was looking at her turned sharper.

“I see that you don’t wish to discuss several subjects, no matter my asking.”

She glared at him, the anger in her eyes taking him aback, but he did not recoil when she slammed the empty cup on the table.

“When for once in my life I do something without being forced to, why do you try to _force_ me to acknowledge it?”

He was too clever to miss the implications of her words, but he chose to disregard them for the time being and focused on giving her an answer.

“Because you have the right to do the things you want, and you _should_ acknowledge that.”

He stood up, leaned forward and grabbed her wrists, making her stand as well.

Moving in front of her, he stared into her eyes. “Do you think that you want things without a reason? You are not like me, you do not seek pleasure from life, yet you weren’t forced into this either. You _chose_ this, you said it yourself. Why do you refuse to face the _reasons_ that made you choose it?”

She stared back at him, her heart beating wildly and her wrists still held in his hands. She knew he had a point, but as he didn’t know everything, there was no chance of him fully understanding.

“Because feelings are dangerous,” she finally whispered. “Feelings will destroy–”

She could not continue, as he yanked her form forward, fully into his arms, releasing her wrists to envelop her body in his hold, bringing his mouth on hers to kiss her hotly.

“So you do have feelings,” he pressed her, smirking once he released her, his mouth still hovering over hers, their eyes impossibly close.

“Of course I have feelings! I’m not empty!” she almost shouted, slightly offended.

“For _whom_ do you have feelings?” he insisted, his voice dangerously low.

“I…”

She didn’t continue, but she was trapped in his arms, and she could not escape either his hold or his gaze without using force.

He was not patient at this point, and became more direct.

“Do you have feelings for me?”

“I–” She closed her mouth again.

His tone was now slightly harsh.

“It’s a yes or no question.”

She was silent for a long while, merely staring at him, and even though he was impatient, Gilgamesh did not break the silence this time.

Finally, she briefly whispered, “Yes.”

He grinned in triumph, his hold around her waist tightening slightly.

“Now, was that so hard to admit?”

To his surprise, she averted her eyes. Arturia felt everything inside her rebelling against the words she had just said, she felt everything tear apart and Natalia screaming in her head, telling her to lower her barriers but to be _careful_.

It was too late now though. She had lost against herself.

She stared at him.

“Yes,” was all she said once again.

Her reply was the same as before, but this time, Gilgamesh stilled. Her voice was broken, raw, devoid of anger but filled instead with so much anguish that he could do nothing but stare back at her, dumbfounded.

However, she closed her eyes, not allowing him to read any more of her emotions, for she had said too much already.

She was a fool. She had ruined everything about her mission with those stupid feelings of hers.

She was an absolute _fool_.

Strangely enough, he did not say anything to respond to her monosyllabic reply, and a moment later, she realized why.

His lips found hers again, this time kissing her gently. The desire was there, the yearning too, but there was something softer now.

She didn’t have the time to think about it though, because it ended too soon.

Gilgamesh’s crimson eyes were impossibly close to her own, and he told her, “You are staying here from now on; it’s your home as well.”

Arturia frowned, uncertain about such a development, but when she opened her mouth to say something, he took advantage of it to kiss her again. It was the same kiss as before, so much softer than usual, not any less passionate but more emotional.

She couldn’t help it: she shivered.

Knowing that right now Gilgamesh was not going to add anything even if she asked, and her mind still in turmoil because of the admission he had coaxed out of her, she took with relief this opportunity to forget everything at least for a while.

She did not offer any resistance when he started to pull her with him back to the bedroom, but only because she categorically refused to have sex with him on the breakfast table.

…

…

…

She argued with Gilgamesh about her going back to the academy.

It was true that, given her injuries, she was justified from not going back immediately, but after a few days, she flatly pointed out that if her body could take the pleasure he made her feel in bed, it could certainly handle a few hours in class listening to lectures.

Besides, she told him quite bluntly that he had no right to lock her inside his house.

Very reluctantly, he had finally stopped protesting, but had demanded for her to call him as soon as she reached the academy – she had told him that she was perfectly capable of taking the bus on her own, thank you very much – and right before she left it.

When she questioned why a text couldn’t suffice, he haughtily replied that he could not know for sure who sent the text, while the sound of her voice was unmistakable. She didn’t have a reply to this and, knowing it perfectly, he simply grinned at her smugly.

As soon as she was well enough, therefore, she went back to the academy, and called Gilgamesh as promised. He had offices in another part of the city, but he was currently working from his study at his house, as he could manage everything from there fairly well.

Once classes were finished for the day, she left the building, calling him again, and if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn there was a note of relief in his voice once he picked up. She refused to let her mind be so foolishly juvenile, and took the bus back to his mansion.

He wasn’t in any of the living rooms, nor in the kitchen. Starting to find her way around more easily, she peeked into his office, but he wasn’t there either. She had a feeling that she had actually known where he was ever since she had entered the house, but she hadn’t wanted to seem too… eager.

Entering his bedroom, she spotted him immediately. He was leisurely lying down on the bed, clad only in his pants, his arms crossed behind his head, and he was staring back at her.

Putting down her bag next to the door, Arturia began to undress. Although inexperienced in having sex with men, she was not insecure about her nakedness – courtesy of Natalia and Maiya’s training – but that wasn’t the only reason why she had truthfully told Gilgamesh that she did not mind him seeing her naked.

The way he looked at her, as garment after garment left her body, was full of a desire that was lustful but strangely managed not to be vulgar at the same time.

Methodically peeling off her clothes, Arturia was struck with how much time had passed since she had undressed in front of someone else. When she had first slept with Gilgamesh, he had been the one to remove – or tear off – her clothes; the last time she had done something like this had been during the training with Natalia and Maiya.

Her eyes clouded over as she thought about it. Having hand-to-hand combat naked was one thing, but being forced towards an utterly soulless orgasm only for the sake of training had been mortifying to say the least. Maiya had been completely straight-faced when touching her, while Natalia had plainly enjoyed it. In truth, Arturia reflected, her own behaviour wasn’t entirely blameless: still reeling from the humiliation she felt, she had literally returned the favour on Maiya, while Natalia had encouraged her. Although forcing her to have sex had been wrong on the two women’s part, her reply in doing the same hadn’t been any better.

She didn’t even realize that she had almost finished undressing, her mind too focused on the past as she let her things drop on a nearby chair, but when her hand accidentally grazed one of her nipples, she was jerked back to the present. She stared down at herself, realizing that she had only her panties left – and she could not forget that she had an audience.

Slowly, she looked up at Gilgamesh, whose arms had pushed him up so that he was now sitting instead of lying down, his eyes devouring her, saying so much more than mere words would’ve been able to. He kept staring at her soundlessly as she slid down her remaining piece of underwear. The only indication that he was affected, and obviously aroused, was the growing tent in his trousers.

Now naked, Arturia realized that she had forgotten to undo her chignon, therefore she pulled at her blue ribbon. It undid her hair all at once, making it fall over her shoulders, but the ribbon fell from her hand to the floor as she did so. She made to bend forward in order to pick it up.

Gilgamesh stood up from the bed, taking the rest of his clothes off swiftly as he came closer to her at the same time. Both his arms encircled her waist, preventing her from leaning forward, and he pulled her flush against him.

She gasped as she felt his erection against her stomach, but he did not give her any time to think as he rapidly made them both reach the bed.

More out of mischief than real displeasure, Arturia’s brow creased slightly.

“My ribbon–”

He silenced her with a sudden kiss, before pulling back and, showing her how darkened his crimson orbs were, uttered, “It won’t go anywhere.”

Feeling her back hitting the mattress, she lied down, but refused to let go of him, and passed her arms – her superficial cuts were healing swiftly – around his neck, searching for his mouth again. He was all too happy to indulge her, but was careful not to get too lost into the feeling of her lips, because he had another task to take care of in the meantime.

While one of his hands was on her cheek, finding a better angle to devour her mouth, his other hand travelled lower and disappeared between her thighs. He grinned into the kiss, very satisfied, when he found her already wet and dripping.

He did not stop at merely touching her though; his fingers began to stroke her, more and more firmly, encouraged by the pleasured sounds that were heard even while her mouth was still engaged by his. His other hand left her cheek to find one of her breasts, kneading and massaging the nipple she had accidentally touched a few moments earlier.

He finally freed her lips, and while Arturia took advantage of it to let out her now unrestrained moans, Gilgamesh had another destination in mind. Finding her previously neglected other breast, he took it into his mouth.

A louder moan escaped her lips, and he smirked against her flesh, starting to nibble at it slightly. Her increasing volume only urged him on, and as one hand gave equal attention to her free breast, the other kept ceaselessly touching and caressing her clit. A few times his fingers would teasingly slide inside her folds, and Arturia tried to arch her back as he did so, but his mouth on her chest and the injury on her side prevented her from moving around too much.

Dazedly, a memory of Natalia crossed her mind, her mentor telling her how unlikely it was for men to indulge in foreplay, and she briefly wondered what kind of people Natalia and Maiya had had sex with, since Gilgamesh at least seemed to take great enjoyment in it.

She was brought back to the current situation when one of his fingers slid deeper inside her, making her cry out as the pleasure intensified. She felt his mouth around her breast shift slightly, and realized he was smirking smugly, the arrogant man. She knew that the sounds she was making were more than welcome to him, encouraging him to continue in his ministration and turning him on at the same time.

The frequency of what had turned into screams of pure pleasure increased, and she became aware of his now rock hard member pressing against her leg and pulsing. Arturia knew that he had an almost inhuman self-control however, and he was going to focus on her before switching to the next part.

Not that she intended to complain, of course.

After all, his touches were becoming more and more insistent, and Arturia closed her eyes, panting and moaning as she felt heat pooling into her lower abdomen, the pressure rising and rising–

A second before she could fall over the edge, he pulled away. His fingers left her, his mouth left her, his entire body pulled away from her. She opened her eyes, but she didn’t have the time to growl at him in frustration for having been left hanging, because she saw that the hand that had been playing at her entrance was replaced by his throbbing member.

She was so wet and slick and just so aroused that his sudden entrance made her come instantly, and she screamed and shuddered violently around him, grasping at his shoulders as her entire body shook in release.

He did not give her the time to come down from her high though, because he began to thrust inside her, subjecting her extremely sensitive body to stronger, renewed stimulation, and she let out a loud, strangled cry. She shivered against him, this slightly more aggressive coupling actually turning her on, and they were both fully aware of it.

His hands found her hips, careful with her wound and holding her still as he found a better angle to take her from. His mouth reached for hers again, kissing her deeply and then nibbling on her lower lip as she moaned at an especially hard thrust.

His relentless movements never slowed down, becoming frantic, and he kissed her again as they both swallowed each other’s screams. She met his body with her own, unwilling to stop, until the pressure on her overstimulated senses became too much.

Arturia went rigid, clamped down around him and came hard once again. His arms around her tightened as he shuddered, exploding with a low groan deep inside her, filling her with something hot before rolling next to her so to not crush her with his now boneless weight.

It took them a while to be able to breathe normally once again, but then he brought his arms around her form the same moment she turned her body to be closer to him. Leaning against her, he kissed her temple briefly, as he had started to do every time after sex, and Arturia felt a strange warmth surging in her chest.

She felt… content. It was… as if she was… she was home.

As if on cue, making her almost widen her eyes, he murmured against her skin, “Welcome home, my love.”

 _Love_.

Aside from making it clear that he considered her home to be with him, he called her _love_.

Had she not been too tired after two consecutive orgasms, Arturia would have been hyperventilating in absolute panic.

But even though she was contentedly exhausted, she could not help feeling strangely numb and hollow in her chest as she rapidly fell asleep in Gilgamesh’s arms.

…

…

When she woke up several hours later, Arturia blinked a few times, trying to overcome the sleep that was threatening to take over again. She felt far too comfortable, considering that she was naked and spooned next to Gilgamesh, their limbs and bedsheets tangled messily. Both his arms were around her, holding her close to him, protectively and possessively.

It occurred to her how unfamiliar this felt to her. She had learned, because of Maiya and Natalia, what to expect from sexual acts, but she had never experienced the closeness of another person’s body like this. She was not accustomed to the feeling of a warm body wrapped around hers in her sleep, and that had made her wake up a few times during the previous nights as well.

Most of all, she was not used to sleeping in the arms of a person she cared about.

She pushed that thought out of her mind, and glanced at him. As much as she would have liked to keep staring at him while he slept, she was already far too invested in this… this… this _relationship_. Everything that she did was making things worse with each passing day.

She looked away, and her eyes landed on the bedside table. There was an unused condom there.

Frowning, she stared at it, and then brought herself to a sitting position with a jolt. They had not used it – they had not used protection the previous night.

She turned her head to stare at Gilgamesh, and found his slightly hazed crimson eyes staring back at her, a raised eyebrow at her expression.

“We didn’t use a condom,” she blurted out, without even thinking of saying anything else.

He looked mildly alarmed, and then seemed to consider this as he brought himself to a sitting position as well.

“I do not fear a pregnancy,” Arturia continued, wondering if that was his first concern too. “I’m on the pill. But, the things is, I don’t know if you– I mean, I don’t think I have a polite way to say this, but–”

Gilgamesh, now sitting next to her, rose both eyebrows at her.

“You’re asking me if I have sexually transmittable diseases,” he finished for her.

She nodded, unwilling to let the subject drop no matter how awkward it was to be so explicit about it.

His sigh was almost theatrical. “I don’t. In spite of what you may think, I don’t disregard safety. I get tested regularly and I always used condoms in the past, tonight is the first time I forgot.” He studied her briefly before asking, “Do _you_ have any illnesses?”

Arturia shook her head, forgoing words again. She was glad that Natalia and Maiya had not had any diseases, and she had gotten tested as well after having sex with them, just in case. She noticed how Gilgamesh was giving her a contemplative look, seemingly leaning towards a scowl.

Knowing perfectly that they were both still naked, she stiffly pulled her legs closer to her body and informed him, her tone clipped, “I will not apologize for asking that – in fact, we should have both been more careful. It’s not a matter to take lightly, and given your… relaxed sexual life, I would like to feel safe.”

His expression remained the same, at least until his lips curved into a small smirk.

“You know I’m not chaste, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have some rules when taking unknown people to bed for a quick liaison. Three simple things, in fact: never in my house, never without condoms, and never bother with kissing.”

She stared at him strangely. What he was talking about was a foreign concept to her, but it made sense that a person like him had his personal standards even in his sex life. She did not and could not agree with how his relationships had been superficial and in many ways empty and meaningless, but those were his own choices for his life, and he seemed to have been controlling them very carefully.

However, once she realized the full implication of his words, she went rigid.

“You said you have those rules, but you broke all three with me.” She became even stiffer. “You are having me stay at your house. We didn’t use a condom. And you kiss me as often as you can.” Her green eyes were filled with wariness. “ _What_ are you trying to say?”

Gilgamesh’s hand found one of her ankles, tugging at her leg so that her entire body shifted on the mattress towards him, allowing him to bring his arm around her waist possessively. Yet he was still careful of her wound, never forgetting that she was still injured.

“Arturia.” His eyes, so close to hers, were concealing his thoughts well, but there was something odd that stood out in them. “I do not kiss people I do not care about.”

And she was in his arms again, his tugging having managed to make her fall forward, against his chest, thankfully giving her the opportunity to close her eyes and bury her face in it to hide her expression from him.

Every time he said something like this – which was happening very often now – she felt herself becoming more torn and closer to the verge of cracking.

She was falling, or had already fallen, in love with him, there was no denying it; but she was also lying to him and deceiving him, all for the sake of a mission that had become pointless now.

What could she do?

Knowing that if she remained still he was going to feel her tremble, she opened her eyes, finding his chest in front of her. Everything else temporarily leaving her mind, she followed her impulses, pushed her tongue out and licked the skin next to his nipple lightly.

He startled and, looking at her, met her eyes; still looking at him, she repeated the movement of her tongue, this time touching his nipple firmly and twirling around it. She felt a tremor run through him, and had the strange desire to do something very Gilgamesh-like and actually smirk.

He seemed to know, because one of his hands went under her chin to make her look at him again. His eyes were slightly glazed over, even after such small a contact, and due to her body being pressed so close to his, she could feel his lower regions being stirred as well.

This time, she didn’t hold back her small smirk.

Gilgamesh smirked back at her. “I do like it when you experiment.”

His mouth found hers, greedily intertwining her tongue with his and turning their planned rest into very different activities.

…

…

…

The routine they fell into was strange.

Even though she still bickered with Gilgamesh over it, Arturia went to the academy every day, though not forgetting to call him, as to make sure he did not fret over her possible disappearance. And once she was back at his house – or home, as he casually called it – unless he had some pressing matters that kept him in his study, he was in her same room. Even when she did something mundane as regular physical exercise, he made sure to be around.

At first, she had been slightly irritated, for it looked like he wanted to be overprotective by watching her all the time; however, it didn’t take her too long to realize that, same as on their dates, all he did was simply enjoy her company. The house itself, he had hinted, was a very secure place; he wasn’t however asking her to stay at his house because he felt responsible for the arson that had destroyed her apartment, but because he _enjoyed_ being with her. And the fact that she actually didn’t mind his closeness was only increasing her inner conflict and confusion.

She had feelings for him, that was true, but it did _not_ mean that she had to be around him twenty-four-seven. She had had fleeting suspicions that he merely spent time with her because he wanted to sleep with her later, but, as there were some evenings in which they went to bed with the sole purpose of sleeping, that could not be considered accurate. His hand would usually indeed brush against her side – always almost annoyingly careful of her healing injury – or go around her waist, or touch her hair, but strangely, sleeping with Gilgamesh didn’t mean that everything was about sex. Not to say that sex _didn’t_ play a role in their relationship, of course.

Having one afternoon free from classes, Arturia came home earlier than usual, and as soon as she had put her bag on the bedroom’s floor, next to the door, she felt Gilgamesh’s arms come to encircle her waist. He nibbled on her ear briefly, before travelling lower towards her neck.

However, she pushed him away lightly.

“Some of my colleagues at the academy saw the hickeys,” she admonished him.

His arms were back on her skin as he stood behind her, and he leaned forward slightly to whisper into her ear, his tone smug, “Good. Everyone must know that you are mine.”

He was about to find her mouth to kiss her, but she stiffened in his hold, her expression clouding over. Sensing her mood, he stared at her questioningly, an eyebrow raised.

“I’m not an object to own,” she harshly informed him, leaving his arms with a decisive pull.

The next second, however, he had trapped her against the wall, his entire body pressed to hers without enough force to make it impossible for her to break free, but staring at her with enough intensity as to render her motionless.

“I am well aware of that.”

“I’m not so sure you are,” she defiantly shot back, her gaze full of so much doubt that he pressed even closer to her, his eyes now burning.

“This isn’t about being an object, this is about being with _me_ ,” his voice came out in a lower tone. “I won’t allow _anyone_ to take you from me.”

A flash of pain crossed Arturia’s eyes, and she immediately averted her eyes, hoping he hadn’t noticed. If he wished to truly be with her, she doubted there was anyone capable of separating her from Gilgamesh – except for _herself_ , and that was what had caused the flash of pain. _She_ was most likely going to be the one to tear herself from him.

But she couldn’t dwell on those thoughts now, she had something different to tell him, mainly about the first subject she had brought up.

After remaining silent for a long while, she finally looked up into his eyes, pushing him back slightly before speaking.

“When my colleagues and even one of the instructors noticed the hickeys, they asked questions. I tried to dismiss them, but then decided that it wasn’t going to do any good, and therefore I told them… that it was _my boyfriend’s_ doing.”

He did not give her a reply right away, and she simply waited. Her words from that same morning had surprised even herself, after all.

The next instant, however, he growled, “Arturia, _my_ Arturia,” before his mouth captured hers, kissing her, kissing her so fervently as to make her fall back against the wall again.

To her surprise, one of his hands was on the back of her head in a flash, to prevent her from slamming into the concrete as he deepened the kiss more demandingly.

It was obvious that, for some reason, the thought of being called her boyfriend was extremely arousing for him.

As abruptly as it had started, however, it ended, and he pulled back, staring at her and panting only slightly. She, on the other hand, was still extremely flushed, her hands having gone to sink into his hair to tug him insistently closer.

What had she been _thinking_ _!_ What had made her say something like that in the morning, and what had possessed her to tell Gilgamesh about it too? It was _true_ that she felt that the explanation she had given was accurate, but how could she have spoken so candidly about it!

She could not do this. She wasn’t going to be able to do this. She could not keep it all up; she could _not_ keep concealing herself from Gilgamesh, she could _not_ keep lying to him. Calling him her boyfriend when all she was doing was sleeping with him and hiding her real identity from him–

The struggle on deciding what to do next was interrupted by him pressing a light kiss to her brow and saying, “As much as I don’t wish for anything but to stay here with you, I have to meet a person for work in my study.”

And just like that, he turned around, walking in the direction of his office, while she stared after him.

She blinked a couple of times, and then narrowed her eyes.

“Gilgamesh, wait!” Infuriated by his dismissal of her right after kissing her in such a manner and precisely as she was making up her mind on what to do next, she followed him. “I need to speak with you–”

She hadn’t figured out yet _what exactly_ she was going to tell him, but she was not going to allow him to walk out on her after she had been so embarrassingly frank with him.

Not looking at her as he reached his office, he merely told her, “It will have to wait. The person I need to meet is coming from the capital, and I should have met him on the weekend we were supposed to go there. It’s about business, and it can’t be delayed.”

Arturia followed him into his study, her anger only growing, fuelled by her conflicted emotions and his seemingly continuous dismissal of her. In this same room he had told her about his connections with illegality and with the Holy Grail, and it only served to rile her up further.

She would have usually been more in control of herself, but she was reaching a dangerous edge by this point.

Therefore, astonishing him, she bellowed, “Is this what you want? For me to compliantly wait for you to have _time_?” She took a step closer to him, her green eyes blazing in fury. “You simply expect me to welcome you with open arms and open legs whenever you feel like it?”

Her blunt language took him aback, she could see it clearly as he finally looked at her, but she didn’t care and, her voice raising, she snarled, “So I _am_ an object to you after all. It’s all ever about what you feel like! When you feel responsible, you play protector, when you feel bored, you have conversations with me, when you feel horny, you fuck me! And when you feel like going back to your work and ignore me, you do! That’s all you keep me around for–”

“Arturia, _what_ is this all about?” he hissed, coming face to face with her as she still seethed with fury. “I know you don’t believe yourself even half of the things you just yelled at me – you know none of them is true!”

She did not become any less angry at his painfully accurate statement, but merely settled for giving him a glare.

“I do need to speak with you,” she insisted, firmly. Her volume was lower, her tone more composed, but her eyes were still flashing dangerously.

His expression was strange, and his hands came up to firmly cup her cheeks, even when she attempted to pull back.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have walked away from you like I just did,” he acknowledged after a pause. “And that is a valid reason to bring you to anger. But I truly have a business meeting now. It won’t be long. I didn’t know you had the afternoon free today, otherwise I would have rescheduled.” He pecked her lips briefly.

Her glare didn’t leave her.

“Kissing me isn’t enough to placate me,” she said through gritted teeth.

A wicked grin appeared on Gilgamesh’s face, making Arturia instantly wary.

“Oh, but my love, I don’t wish to be apart from you, not even for a short while, any more than you do. I cannot cancel this meeting though, therefore I promise it will be as short as possible. And in the meantime…”

He backed her against his desk, caging her form against it, and slipped his hands under her skirt. She inhaled sharply as he touched her through her underwear, the new underwear she had just bought a few days before when she had gone shopping for a new wardrobe.

“Red ones, hmm?” He smirked widely against her lips, extremely pleased and smug about her choice in the colour of her panties.

Arturia flushed once again, this time in mortification, and he grasped her thighs, lifting her up slightly so that she was now sitting on his desk. Her injury was almost completely healed by now, he did not need to be too careful anymore.

He leaned down, between her parted legs, pushing her panties to the side, and his tongue darted out to lick her, as he had done many times before, and he managed to make her jump and shiver in pleasure as he always did.

Soon, however, he pulled up again, staring at her intently. His eyes had darkened considerably, and she could see his pants showing a significant bulge in the front.

Her hands moved on their own and she grabbed his shoulders, hoisting his entire body closer to her. He was all too happy to oblige, and while one of his hands went to caress her face again, pulling her mouth to his for a deep kiss, his other unzipped his pants–

There was a knock on the office door.

Arturia froze, her arms still around him, while Gilgamesh looked extremely irritated, even though he was trying to suppress it.

Knowing that there was little time before the person decided to just try and come in, he pulled Arturia off the desk, kissed her quickly and murmured against her ear, “Hide underneath.”

She gave him an incredulous stare, but realized that indeed, she did not have enough time to put her clothes back in place, reach the other door and leave. Shooting him an affronted glance, she lowered herself on the floor silently and crawled underneath his desk.

It was a large, majestic, wooden piece of furniture, and she had more than enough space to sit comfortably underneath it and without the slightest possibility of being seen from anyone sitting on the other side.

That didn’t mean that being in such a position wasn’t extremely demeaning. She watched Gilgamesh reach for his chair and sit down before calmly telling the person to come in.

She heard the door open and close, followed by the formal words Gilgamesh used to give a neutral greeting to his guest. She frowned slightly when she noticed that he did not stand up to shake hands with him, which was a normal form of politeness; she knew that Gilgamesh was not one to care for such things, but it was still strange and even rude of him to ignore civility so blatantly.

She glared at him from underneath the desk, but in doing so, suddenly realized the reason for his behaviour. Only able to see his body from the waist down, it was apparent to her that he had not had the time to zip up his pants again. He had only had the time to make her hide in this rather humiliating fashion.

Arturia got a very daring idea.

Just a few minutes before she had been yelling at Gilgamesh with false accusations, mostly because she was angry at his dismissal of her; now she found herself in the position of hiding in his study, underneath his desk, while he had a work meeting with his pants unzipped and still being half-hard.

Well then. He was not going to dictate what she could or couldn’t do.

She listened carefully for a couple of minutes, making sure that they had the time to discuss the important parts of whatever business deal they were making before slowly inching closer to Gilgamesh’s body. Taking care not to make a sound, she let her hand grasp him through his briefs.

Thanks to her privileged position, she immediately saw how his entire body tensed at her touch. She had purposefully chosen a moment in which the other person was speaking, so that Gilgamesh would not embarrass himself by becoming distracted mid-sentence. She wanted to tease him, not punish him.

Pushing his pants out of the way, she carefully took his member out of his underwear and began to softly stroke him. His body tensed up even more, and she could not deny that she liked seeing that. He was hardening in front of her eyes, and she felt an unexpected stab of arousal run through her as well. Her strokes became firmer, with the precise goal of having him reach full stiffness, and she was soon rewarded in her efforts.

Still managing not to make even the smallest of sounds, she smiled, licking her lips.

Accidentally, the action caused her tongue to brush against the tip of his erection, and she was surprised by the tremor that ran through Gilgamesh at that.

It reminded her of what Natalia had explained to her, in rather explicit details, about oral sex on males. She had never done anything like it before, but she wasn’t about to let her lack of experience stop her. Besides, Gilgamesh himself had told her that he liked it when she _experimented_.

Pushing his legs apart a little, in order to get closer to his now slightly throbbing shaft, she ran her tongue over his tip again, feeling both his tremor and her own wave of desire. The taste was strange, but surprisingly similar to what she had tasted when Gilgamesh had kissed her after using his mouth between her legs. She could still hear the other person talking about the business deal.

Settling herself closer to him, she licked her lips again, and closed her mouth around him.

It was weird to find out that such an action made Gilgamesh’s muscles tighten as he obviously fought for self-control, while at the same time she felt her own excitement pooling between her legs, where his fingers and tongue had been only a few minutes before.

Pushing her head forward, flattening her tongue, she took him fully into her mouth, moving up and down a few times, before deciding to experiment again, and she sucked.

…

Gilgamesh was in _ecstasy_.

Or rather, he would have been if he hadn’t currently been focusing his every last bit of energy into maintaining his professional mask. Underneath the desk, Arturia was swirling her tongue around him, silently yet efficiently sucking him off.

 _Very_ efficiently.

They had been about to have sex before being interrupted by the arrival of his business associate, and since he had not had the time to make Arturia leave, he had opted for making her hide, confident that the meeting wouldn’t take long.

But he had forgotten two crucial details: one, his pants were not back in place, and two, Arturia was an unpredictable vixen.

Without making even the slightest sound – how she managed it was beyond his comprehension – she was moving her mouth around his throbbing erection, and Gilgamesh bit his tongue hard in doing all he could to hold back his moans of pleasure. He knew he was close.

Since the man in front of him had paused in the midst of his speech, he took that opportunity to briefly conclude the meeting, swiftly dismissing him in a curter manner than he would have normally done. But he didn’t care; they had already discussed all the points of importance – in fact, he mused, it was likely that Arturia had waited a bit on purpose – he wanted the mongrel gone now.

As the man stood up to leave, Arturia’s hand joined her mouth around him. He managed to nod at the man leaving the office with sufficient composure nonetheless.

She sucked harder.

The door closed, and just a few seconds later, he exploded into her mouth, letting out a harsh breath.

His whole body shaking in his chair, he watched through half-lidded eyes how she crawled out from under his desk and got to her feet, her face as stoic as possible, even with a few white drops on her chin. But he knew her well, and he could see that she was trembling slightly in desire, no matter how valiantly she fought to conceal it.

He focused on her mouth, seeing how reddened and even slightly swollen her lips were, and in that moment, her tongue darted out to lick them clean, generously showing more traces of something white that disappeared as she swallowed.

Her deadpan display was more than enough to make him hard again.

He stood up, his previous drowsiness forgotten, and reached for the door in a second, making sure it was closed. He was by her side again in a flash, one of his hands reaching around her waist to pull her into his arms while the other cleared his desk unceremoniously. Picking her up, he made her sit on it once again, deftly finding her red panties and ripping them off her.

He pushed on her shoulders, making her lie down on his now empty desk – the desk which she had been underneath just a few seconds before – and finding her entrance, let his fingers slide inside her.

She moaned, tightening slightly around him, and he had confirmation of the fact that what she had done to him had affected her as well. This time, he did not have the patience for a long foreplay, but that did not mean that he was going to leave her unsatisfied. She was slick around his fingers, but not wet enough to come.

Yet.

He smirked inwardly as he leaned forward to trace her ear with his mouth, and then murmured, “Arturia?”

Her emerald eyes met his, while her pants began to fill the room as his fingers moved relentlessly inside her. A smirk appeared on his lips as he looked at her, lying down on his desk in his study, his hand touching her so intimately.

Hotly, he whispered, “The door isn’t locked.”

If she hadn’t been fighting so hard to stifle her moans, Arturia would have felt embarrassment at how her body reacted at that simple sentence, her spike of arousal making her come instantly around his fingers.

Arturia shuddered and shut her eyes as her entire body tingled in overwhelming pleasure, and when she came down from her high and blearily fluttered her eyelids half-way open, she found his hungry crimson eyes staring at her.

He was _far_ from done.

As she was still trying to catch her breath after her powerful release, she was dimly aware of Gilgamesh undressing fully, stripping her of the rest of her clothes as well and then pulling her naked body forward, into his arms.

Taking her by surprise, he turned her around, making her lie down again, and the feel of the wooden desk against her breasts was odd to say the least, but she forgot about it near instantaneously the moment he entered her from behind.

She shuddered violently at the powerful sensation, all her nerve endings on fire once again as his hands found her hips, holding her in place while caressing her skin nonchalantly.

He pulled back slightly, only to thrust forward once again, and Arturia had to grab onto something, in her case the desk, to keep herself from thrashing around madly. She had to put all her focus into holding back her moans as the delicious sensations only increased with each passing second.

And suddenly, the hand which had been caressing her hip left her, only to slap her bottom lightly.

It was unexpected, but what was even more unexpected was the new shudder than ran through her whole body, and she instinctively tightened around him. They both groaned loudly, and she felt Gilgamesh bending over her form, finding her ear and licking it briefly. She shuddered again.

He chuckled against her skin, making her shivers intensify, and slowly, seductively, breathed, “Aren’t you _naughty_.”

As he took her hard against the desk, she didn’t even attempt to stifle her loud screams of pleasure anymore, and lost herself completely to the onslaught of sensations that was raining down on her due to his merciless attentions.

With one final thrust on his part, she came undone once again, and he followed her immediately over the edge, spilling deep inside her.

Gilgamesh took a moment to catch his breath, before leaning back to pull out, his finger tracing her down her spine as he did so. One last tremor ran down her body, but she was too spent to give any other reaction.

Still lying on the straight surface, she tried to push herself back and stand up, but her knees gave out and almost made her stumble back on the wooden desk. With a warm, satisfied chuckle, he caught her in his hold, pulling her to him, kissing her temple tenderly before leaning down, finding her panties and sliding them back in place. She saw that his body was trembling slightly too, but she was distracted once his hand found her bottom, the exact place where he had slapped her.

His eyes became a shade darker as he stared at her.

“You liked it.”

It was a question, not a statement, and Arturia blushed rather violently, because she _had_ liked it. She had never thought she would be into something a little more rough like that. There had to be something seriously wrong with her; or maybe, as Natalia had once told her, she had simply started to find out her personal kink.

Her blush deepened as she held his gaze and slowly nodded.

Gilgamesh’s smirk at her wordless reply was annoying, but he thankfully didn’t insist on the subject, finding her skirt, her bra and her shirt, dutifully buttoning her up and dressing her again, while he remained stark naked in front of her.

She wondered if she could help him to his clothes as well, and figured there was nothing wrong in trying it.

And she had to admit, there was something startlingly intimate about helping another adult get dressed, about having the trust of the person who allowed her to do so – same as she had just done with him.

He gave her a lopsided grin, informing her, “I really don’t think I will apologize for the abrupt dismissal of today the next time I meet that poor mongrel.”

Gilgamesh pulled her then into his arms again, kissing her forehead and following a path from there down to her cheeks, her nose, her other cheek, her chin and finally, very chastely, her lips. He could still find a slight aftertaste of himself, and he could not say he disliked that.

After such intense sex, Arturia thought that this behaviour on his part was surprisingly tender.

As they parted, she looked him in the eye seriously.

“Am I here just as a sex object to you, Gilgamesh?”

Her tone was rather flat, as if she was asking him about something as mundane as the weather, but her expression made it clear that while she wanted an answer, she was not going to allow that answer to faze her. She wanted the truth, regardless of what it was.

His fingers, which had been inside her just a few minutes before, found her chin, looking at her, matching her seriousness.

“I do not care about what gave you that idea.” His crimson eyes held a penetrant gaze. “You know that you aren’t anything like that.”

“Then what am I to you?” she countered, her voice rising, green eyes sharpening.

His gaze sharpened as well.

“You know it.”

His hand came up, to touch her cheek, but she intercepted it, holding it in a steel grip.

“Don’t make assumptions,” her voice was as cutting as a knife. “And don’t leave me to make my own assumptions either. Be so kind as to speak plainly.”

She did not release his hand, and simply waited.

His lips curled into a smile.

“Why, it’s really simple.” He took a step closer. “Do I enjoy your company? Yes. Do I _want_ to be in your company? Certainly. Do I want to be with you, _only_ you, in every sense of the word? Most definitely.”

His eyes looked like deep fires, burning solely for her. “You are _precious_ to me, because _I love you_.”

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	7. If I can go on without losing my way, I don't mind if my heart is broken to pieces (Archer, part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During the past few months I've been editing the six chapters already posted, therefore I recommend re-reading them briefly ;) I genuinely hope you enjoy this new chapter, since it literally sucked the life out of me :P
> 
> Many heartfelt thanks to MimiBlue for taking the time to edit this so patiently!!!

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Gilgamesh thought about Arturia Albion more often than he liked to admit.

After that horrible night in which his best friend Enkidu had been killed, he had never thought he would come to care about anyone as deeply ever again. But then he had met _her_.

He enjoyed and savoured every moment, every second he was with her, as he had fallen extremely hard for her, and the thought that she was literally living with him was incredibly satisfying.

She was with him, living with him, sleeping next to him, and she was his. His precious, hot, desirable and delectable Arturia was _his_.

It should have been perfect. Having her with him was all he truly desired. And it most certainly _would_ have been perfect, if there hadn’t been something, or rather several things, that seemed to trouble her.

She was not very good at hiding her inner turmoil, and he was displeased at noticing that she seemed to look conflicted more often than not. She was worried about something, yet at the same time, she was refusing to let him in.

Not that he doubted that she liked her current situation with him. She was incapable of lying, and the way she looked at him made her feelings clear. She wasn’t an open person by nature, but she smiled much more when she was with him, and she didn’t reject physical intimacy anymore. Furthermore, she did not hold back in asking him questions and discussing things with him. She seemed to be _at ease_ with him.

And yet…

There were some things in her behaviour that stood out as strange, and there were some subjects that were still taboo.

He had noticed the tone of utter, miserable defeat when she had admitted to having feelings for him, as it kept replaying in his mind rather unkindly. Then when he had declared that no one would take her from him, there had been a flash of raw pain in her eyes before she had managed to avert them from him. In other moments, when he casually said something about their relationship – for it _was_ a relationship – her expression would freeze, seem uncomfortable, or prompt her to even bring forth strange questions.

Just a few weeks before, when he had had a meeting in his study, she had been absolutely incensed at his dismissal of her, and had surprised him by yelling a series of incoherent accusations at him, even though she herself knew that they weren’t true. It had eventually led to some of the best sex he had had with her yet, but that had not made him forget that she had insisted that she needed to speak with him.

She had later not brought up the subject again, even when he had reminded her of it, and everything had gone back to normal. Yet he had noticed that strange expression of pain and even sorrow on her face again, and more than once.

It was as if she seemed to think that there was something _wrong_ in being with him, or something that was going to _prevent_ her from being with him. She had feelings for him, she loved being with him, she accepted his touch and his closeness without hesitation – but there was something about it all that bothered her.

Since he didn’t like this _at all_ , Gilgamesh thought back on everything he knew about her, trying to see if there was something he had missed somewhere.

Contrary to his expectations, she had not talked more about her past after they had first slept together. Back when he had told her about Enkidu, she had shared details about her childhood, about growing up in foster care; lately, she sometimes talked about having studied law at university and occasionally about her courses at the police academy.

But there were several years, between her childhood and the current months, about which she told him absolutely nothing. She was well past her mid-twenties, therefore, even though he knew that studying law required a few years at least, there was still a large gap in her life about which she had not talked. As far as he knew, she had been abroad for a couple of years, where she had supposedly started her training as a policewoman, yet again, she didn’t talk about it at all.

It was odd, he had to acknowledge it. He loved her, so of course he wanted to know everything about her, yet she wasn’t allowing it. She had admitted, very reluctantly, that she had not had sexual experiences voluntarily; but she had not provided details, and had not even mentioned at what point of her life they had taken place. When he had questioned her further, it had been easy for him to find out that she had killed people in the past, but again, she had not told him when or why.

There was a large – and he suspected important – part of her life that she was keeping carefully hidden from him, and that he had not been able to unveil yet.

Not only was there something that she was hiding, but he also believed it to be something dark. The fact that there was darkness in her had become abundantly clear to him not too long before, and he had become certain of it when she had killed her two assailants without hesitation and had later not displayed any emotional reaction when he had murdered Iskandar in front of her.

It was ridiculous, he ultimately decided. As he had already determined some time before, he wanted _Arturia_ to tell him about herself. He wanted her to open up to him, and he felt rather certain that she was going to talk with him sooner rather than later. He suspected she had meant to say something to him that day in his study, but then she had either changed her mind or had been still conflicted. Arturia’s trust was hard to earn, he knew that.

It frustrated him, not having her full trust – yet – but he was, uncharacteristically, willing to be patient. She was worth it, after all.

Speaking of Arturia, he wondered where she was. She had gone to class earlier in the day, but she had called him, a short while before, to tell him she was finished, and she should have been back by now.

Frowning slightly, he left his study – the memories in that room were always of the most pleasant nature – where he had actually very little to do as he had concluded his work already. He couldn’t stand not to be in Arturia’s presence any longer, but he also began to feel some anxiousness fill him.

The Holy Grail had suffered a serious blow, as all the newspapers had after all reported Iskandar Macedonia’s death – of course the investigation had been dropped because of the pressure from other mafia members – but that did not mean that they were going to leave him alone.

Just a few days before, there had been news of an explosion in one of the main subway stations, where many civilians had lost their lives. It was obviously a terror attack, something in which the Holy Grail specialized, and Gilgamesh knew that it was nothing less than a clear threat against anyone who thought that Rider’s end would affect them. One member may have been killed, but one member wasn’t going to make a difference in the power of the underground organization.

Unnerved by such thoughts, Gilgamesh went to the living room, where he had left his phone after Arturia had called him, and then stopped.

She was there, sitting on the sofa, facing away from him, her legs tucked underneath her composedly, and she seemed to be gazing into the distance, lost in her thoughts.

For a few minutes, all he did was study her. He could only see half of her face from his position, but he noticed her biting her lips a few times anxiously, and she seemed to be truly preoccupied. As silently as he could, he entered the room slowly.

She tensed up instantly. Her senses were much keener than he was willing to admit, or perhaps being stealthy just wasn’t his forte. Her head turned around abruptly, facing him with a hard stare – but as soon as she saw it was him, she relaxed immediately and gave him one of her rare, small smiles.

He came to sit down next to her and, to his great pleasure, she readily melted into his embrace. He did not bother concealing how much that simple action, the way she relaxed around him, was important and endearing to him. She had been in his arms just a few hours before, in the morning, when they had woken up in bed, but it was still wonderful to be back in that position once again.

There was little light coming into the room, as it was already evening, but that didn’t stop Gilgamesh from observing every detail of her closely. In a very unusual gesture, he leaned forward, finding her lips, and instead of initiating a more passionate making out session, he simply kissed her lightly.

He felt her surprise as his touch remained uncharacteristically soft, and then his lips travelled down her neck. Once again, oddly enough, he was caressing her with his touch, instead of nibbling or sucking… what was going on with those strange, openly _caring_ gestures…?

He had shown to like it when he could unbutton her clothes, as he seemed extremely fixated on being the one to undress her, therefore Arturia had almost unconsciously started to wear shirts more often. His fingers lingered with evident pleasure on the buttons as he carefully opened them, one by one, and then threw the garment to the side.

It didn’t take long for the rest of their clothes to follow, and soon, he was pinning her to the sofa, and hovered over her as they were both naked. The doors of the room weren’t closed, but there was no one else in the house, which meant that they didn’t need to worry about interruptions.

Very slowly, almost tenderly, his hands and lips went to touch and caress her entire body, occasionally leaving a kiss but not neglecting even a single inch of her skin at the same time. And, as often as possible, he looked up, meeting her gaze.

When he wasn’t looking into her eyes, he was fully focused on the spot he was kissing, but he never once stopped his strange, thorough ministrations.

When he entered her, she parted her legs a little wider, to be able to wrap them around him as they moved together, passionately, deeply, yet still slowly and caringly.

Was this… was this what making love felt like…?

He murmured words she didn’t hear into her ear, but she knew they were most likely encouragements and terms of endearment, and she could not help writhing and buckling under his loving touch.

It lasted much longer than usual, and once they came down from their high, Gilgamesh pulled out of her and leaned down next to her, pleased that the couch was large enough for them both. She snuggled closer into his arms, completely overwhelmed by the intense feeling of their unusual coupling.

Arturia closed her eyes, drowsy, unable to explain to herself how it had been possible for her to feel as if she were about to pass out from the powerful tenderness of the act. She felt her own breath evening out and, even though she was still awake, it looked like she was sleeping already.

Sleep in fact wasn’t far, but she heard him loud and clear as Gilgamesh’s lips brushed against her temple before moving to her ear as he murmured, almost imperceptibly, “I love you, Arturia.”

Then he settled his head on top of hers, pulling her even closer as he drifted off to sleep as well.

Her drowsiness helped, but it still took Arturia all her self-control to continue her pretended sleep. She knew that she had not imagined it – especially since it wasn’t the first time he told her such a thing – and her heartbeat increased abruptly.

Yet if it had been hard to prevent a change in her breathing that would give away the fact that she had heard him, she was startled at finding out that it cost her much more not to _give him a reply_.

She had thought she had felt overwhelmed just a few seconds before, but the urge to now confess to him that she held the same feeling for him was even stronger.

It terrified her.

Weeks before, when after being together in his study he had clearly told her he loved her, she had been too dumbfounded to even register his words, let alone say anything, but since they had stumbled back into bed and she had then resumed with her classes and he with his work, it had not been given proper attention. Besides, it wasn’t like she didn’t know already.

But it was still a shock to hear him say it again like this.

They had just had sex, or rather, they had just made love, and he had softly kissed her and told her he loved her, in a moment in which he thought she was asleep, meaning that he did not expect _nor demand_ for her to give him a reply.

But she wanted to. She _wanted_ to tell him that she felt the same, because it was the truth.

Yet she couldn’t.

She could not confess to him that she was in love with him if she wasn’t fully honest about herself first.

…

…

…

Their normal routine was back in place the following day, with them spending time together, sleeping together and going about their daily activities as usual.

However, Arturia decided that she had to stop being a victim of her foolish feelings and finally, _finally_ make a decision.

She couldn’t simply remain in his house – even though he had taken to calling it _their home_ – and stay with him as if she was living a pretty fairy tale.

She was an agent; she had duties to follow.

It was incredibly wrong and selfish of her to keep living in a small bubble of happiness, _actual_ happiness, together with him, while there were people _dying_ because of the Holy Grail. She could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist when she was in Gilgamesh’s arms, but while she blissfully remained there, there were terror attacks in the city. There were mass killings, as just a few days before an explosion in the subway had caused a massacre. There were people being threatened and controlled by the powerful and dangerous underground organization, and instead of fighting against injustice, she was wasting her time in a romantic dalliance.

She was supposed to be an agent – one of the best agents, in fact – and she firmly believed she had the capability to eradicate the Holy Grail, but _only if_ she focused on what she needed to do instead of nourishing foolish feelings.

She had however not received any news from Irisviel, nor from Maiya, nor from Natalia, and much less from her boss Kiritsugu. It had been over four months since her apartment had been burned to the ground, and she had not had any contact with the headquarters since then.

No contact at all meant, as distressing as the thought was, that something was wrong. Since this was the situation, she believed that she had the right to make her own decision.

From a logical point of view, there was nothing to be gained by remaining with Gilgamesh Babylonia. He was likely to have some information about the Holy Grail, but probably superficial and inaccurate as he claimed he was not part of the organization; moreover, there wasn’t the possibility of having him tell her what he knew without raising suspicions.

Indeed, the best option as an agent was to abort the mission – as she should have done _weeks_ before – and in fact, not limit herself to that. Her duty would be to denounce Gilgamesh and arrest him. Even though he wasn’t part of the mafia, he had partaken in illegal activities, and had even told her enough for her to be able to find evidence and convict him, if she so desired. Especially since she had been witness of his murdering people.

He had broken the law. He deserved be handed over to justice, and go to trial for his crimes, while she should go back to her boss – in order to be cleared of her own crimes during Rider’s murder – and work on a new strategy to bring down the Holy Grail, which had recently received another blow because of Rider’s death. That, by all logical accounts, was what she _should_ do.

Reporting Gilgamesh to the police and continuing with her mission against the Holy Grail was her duty, and she had never gone against her duty.

Yet Arturia found herself at a loss, because she _didn’t know_ what to do, even though she had spent days considering option after option.

She knew what duty told her to do, but her heart, her mind and even her logic told her something different.

If she did her duty and arrested Gilgamesh, it wouldn’t necessarily be beneficial, nor would it be as easy as it sounded. His crimes, at least those for which she could find evidence – she knew that she was probably not going to be able to prove that he killed the mafia boss Iskandar, not even through testifying herself, all due to the organization’s pressure – those crimes would actually be seen as _minor_ compared to the general level of criminality. And as he was not part of the Holy Grail, his arrest would not be a step forward in the real mission of eradicating the true enemy. In fact, since they had now reasons to fear Gilgamesh, it would be doing them a _favour_.

Caster and Rider, who had been part of the Holy Grail, were dead. The real boss of the organization was unknown, but it clearly wasn’t Archer. It could be Berserker, and it was possible that Gilgamesh knew something about him, even though finding that out was impossible.

Arturia had never felt as indecisive as she was currently feeling. She had of course had to make difficult choices in the past, but never one that was going to tear her apart.

Because that was precisely the worst problem she was facing: no matter what she chose to do, it was going to cost her a lot. Probably her sanity, if not her heart.

Of one thing she was however completely certain: she could not stay. After fully realizing what Gilgamesh had told her that day in his office, and then hearing him whisper those words when he thought she was asleep, she knew that she could not do this anymore. She could not keep living with him, staying with him, sleeping with him, _being_ with him – _and_ keep lying to him and deceiving him about her true self. She could not bear keeping up her façade of falseness anymore. She simply couldn’t.

She clutched her head in her hands. She hated it, she hated what she was going to do, but she had finally made up her mind.

She had to go complete her mission against the Holy Grail, which meant that she had to leave. There was no other choice but leaving, because she could not stand to lie to him any longer.

She wasn’t going to arrest Gilgamesh, because it would not reap any kind of benefit; she was simply going to disappear.

But – before leaving, she was going to tell him the truth. She was going to tell him everything, who she was, what she had done, _why_ she had done it, her mission, her duty… everything.

It was going to go against her years of training, for it meant betraying everything she believed in as an agent, and it was going to ruin her mission and probably even herself. Her pride as an agent, her pride as the person she was – _had been_ – would need to be ruthlessly discarded.

It would have indeed been much easier to simply disappear overnight; but she owed him, and herself, the truth about who she was. Besides, if she just left without an explanation, he was going to come look for her, for he was not the kind of man who would let go so easily of someone he cared about. If she told him the truth instead, he was going to be disgusted and not want to have anything to do with her anymore.

She had to leave, but she also had to tell him why, because she was falling–… no. Because she had _already_ fallen in love with him.

The irony of it…

She was such a _failure_ as an agent. Falling for her target… she was completely and utterly pathetic.

Yet she was still going to tell him the truth, because if she wasn’t true with the man she loved, she wasn’t going to be able to live with herself. Even though it was going to make him hate her, she was still going to do it, because she _deserved_ his hatred.

She should have ended their strange relationship before it reached such levels of intimacy – and by that she meant more than just the sex.

She was too involved personally, as disgraceful as it was to admit.

…

Oddly enough, once she made her decision, while still feeling extremely conflicted about it, she also felt calmer. She had a new objective now.

It was going to be hard to do, of course. She knew that she had been a fool for letting things escalate to this level, mainly because she wasn’t the only person who was too involved: _Gilgamesh_ was too involved as well.

Contrary to what Kiritsugu and even Rider’s men had told her, he had not been satisfied after sleeping with her, or grown bored of her or attempted to discard her. He wanted more from her, and what terrified her the most about it was that she did not mind that at all; in fact, she _reciprocated_ such a feeling.

He did not force her to sleep with him. He did not use her body as a tool for his pleasure. He did not want carnal pleasure alone, because he almost seemed to prefer to simply hold her or sit next to her, rather than have sex with her, no matter how much they both enjoyed it. Sex in itself didn’t necessarily have to mean anything, because it was simply a physical act, yet with Gilgamesh, it couldn’t be dismissed as such.

He did not force his pleasure on her, he let her experiment with his body without the slightest objection; on the contrary, he _enjoyed_ it when she tried new things with eager curiosity.

His whole behaviour showed a degree of trust that would have scared her if she hadn’t felt the same way.

She loved him, and she wished, above anything else, that she had the opportunity to truly be with him. But she was still an agent, and she couldn’t.

Yet that meant that she still had to – _needed to_ – be honest with him before leaving.

As she secretly packed some of her things in a bag she could take with her once she left, Arturia had to wonder if he was going to try to kill her once she told him everything.

She could not allow for that to happen, because she had too much to do with her mission and the Holy Grail, but it was a concrete possibility, and that meant that she had to be ready. She knew that she had become important to him, but she also knew that it was all going to change once she told him the truth – because it was going to be a _betrayal_.

To her own surprise, she noticed her vision becoming unfocused by tears. She bitterly forced herself to find her composure again. Even though she tried not to think about it, she knew that it was going to be horrible.

She was going to have to watch the trust he had in her disappear from his eyes, and it was going to be even worse to do so knowing that it would all be of her own doing.

…

…

…

Finding the opportunity to tell him was much harder than she had expected, because she had the despicable, desperate desire to delay the inevitable. Yet when one early afternoon he made an unexpected declaration once again, she knew that she had to tell him the truth before she decided never to leave at all.

She couldn’t even remember what exactly they had been talking about, but she recalled Gilgamesh’s words vividly.

“You are the only one worthy of my love, and in fact,” his crimson eyes had looked at her possessively while his arm had gone to encircle her waist, “you are not _only_ worthy, you also have it already.”

As he leaned forward to pull her to his chest, Arturia could hear her deafening heartbeat, and held back a strangled sob. It was impossible to resist him, he was too intoxicating, and she felt no impulse to leave his arms, especially not after he had, once again, so casually declared his feelings for her.

One of her hands sank into his hair while the other grabbed his shoulder, yanking him even closer. She briefly saw his smirk, but she wiped that expression off his face by crushing her lips against his, kissing him roughly, with abandon, preventing them both from thinking.

She didn’t even realize that her eyes were filling with tears, at least until she felt them about to escape, and forced them back out of sheer force of will.

This was probably the last kiss she could share with him; she wanted to savour it, as selfish as it was.

Once they both needed air, he let his mouth travel down her neck, and she could feel his previous smirk back in place and now widening as she responded to him almost unconsciously. She shivered, her body already trembling in anticipation, and he left a trail of kisses along her collarbone.

He was never tired of her, never had enough of her. She acknowledged that the same was true for herself as well, and she regarded both thoughts with dread.

Once he started to tug at her clothes, however, she pulled back. It was now or never.

“Gilgamesh,” she was still breathless, but tried to regain her composure the best she could. “I need to speak with you.” A strange expression crossed her features. “It’s important.”

He regarded her with an equally strange expression, but even though she couldn’t recognize his other emotions, surprise did not seem to be among them.

She felt like she should give an explanation for interrupting them. “I think we should have our clothes on for this conversation, as I can’t guess exactly what your reaction is going to be.”

He tilted his head to the side.

“It would be a bit early for you to be pregnant, but if that’s what you’re trying to tell me, I’m most certainly not running away from my responsibilities.”

She stared at him in shock for a moment, not missing his completely relaxed attitude towards the possibility of them having a child, before shaking her head vehemently.

“Gilgamesh – we’ve always, or almost always, used condoms, and you know I’m on the pill as well, so no, I’m certainly _not_ pregnant!”

A pregnancy was _definitely_ the very last thing she needed at this moment in her life, and she was confident that she wasn’t having a baby any time soon, as she was always careful in taking the pill. She took a step away from him, straightening her clothes and glancing at the other side of the room, where there was her large bag, which she meant to take with her.

Gilgamesh followed the direction of her gaze and frowned deeply when he noticed her neatly packed things.

“Arturia,” his voice was suddenly sharp, “what do you think you’re doing? You are not deciding to leave just like this.”

“I cannot stay here anymore,” she replied seriously, but he scoffed.

“Yes you can,” his tone was decisive, dismissive. “You won’t be able to run away so easily.”

She held his gaze, but her expression contracted.

“In the best case scenario, _you_ will be the one to want to throw me out and never wish to see me again, once I’m done talking.” Her lips formed a thin, grim line. “Although it’s far more likely that you will want to kill me instead.”

At this, Gilgamesh stiffened. She looked extremely serious, and while determined, also profoundly sad.

“I hope you don’t have any urgent business to tend to right now, because this isn’t going to be swift,” she began slowly. “And if you don’t mind, I think it’s truly best if we sit down.”

The tension in the room seemed to increase, especially when he noticed that she chose to sit far from him, so to prevent him from taking her into his arms.

Arturia crossed her own arms over her chest, in what could be mistaken for a nervous movement but was merely a futile defence mechanism. She despised herself for such cowardice, but it was helping her feel a little – _slightly_ – more prepared to face what would happen once she confessed everything.

She was not going to allow herself to take a deep breath, and her words just blurted out.

“On the very first day we met, I lied to you, Gilgamesh. My name isn’t Arturia Albion, it’s Arturia Pendragon. I am enrolled to the police academy merely for show, because in truth, I am a special agent on an undercover mission. And _you_ were my target.”

The silence that followed was deafening, but she did not let it stretch. She had found the courage to start talking, she wasn’t going to stop now; she was going to come completely clean.

“My mission’s primary objective regarded taking out the Holy Grail. You, because of your status as Archer, were thought to be one of the bosses; and since other undercover operations to infiltrate the mafia had ended badly, it was decided to go for a civilian cover instead.”

She did not meet his eyes as she shifted slightly as her words kept stumbling out. “My instructions were to get close to you, as a civilian. I was instructed to meet you at that café, as casually as possible, and get to know you. My bosses thought that my personality would… be… of interest to you, therefore they chose to send me on this mission. I had to get you to open up to me and trust me enough to tell me about your activities, so that I could arrest you. It’s likely, although I can’t prove it,” she shifted again, uncomfortably, “that they are the ones who burned my apartment, to force you to take me in. However,” she swallowed, knowing that her voice was about to crack, “they never considered the fact that I would fall in love with you.”

She had never told him that she loved him. He had made her admit that she had feelings for him, but she had never acknowledged that she had fallen in love with him. Nevertheless, she did not look up at his face as she made her declaration; she did not want to see his expression.

She knew that pronouncing her following words meant betraying her agent self, but she also knew that she would betray her true self if she didn’t admit it.

“Even though you are not part of the Holy Grail, I should arrest you for your illegal activities. But I cannot complete this mission. I can’t sell you out. I can’t do it.”

Her head hung low, and her voice lowered as well. “I never stopped being myself when I was with you. In all my years as an agent, on every single mission I was, I had to hold myself in check, forget myself even, for the sake of duty. But this mission required me to be myself, and it was… difficult. I had an ulterior motive for accepting to go on dates with you at the beginning, but I never faked my reactions or my thoughts.” She paused. “The only time I did conceal my feelings was when you told me you weren’t part of the Holy Grail.”

Gilgamesh had been sitting perfectly still on the couch until that moment, not saying a word and not moving an inch. At her last sentence, however, he finally spoke.

His tone was one she was unused to, as it was low, harsh and _dangerous_.

“I suppose that then you were deciding on how to change your mission to adapt to the new situation.”

She snapped her head up, meeting his eyes, and could easily read the ferocious anger and the _betrayal_ running through them. Her chest constricted in hurt, knowing that she deserved every second of it, but it wasn’t going to stop her from telling him the truth.

Her lower lip quivered for a second, and then she whispered, holding his gaze, “No. While I had indeed a chaos of conflicting thoughts running through my mind in that moment, the only real emotion I felt was relief.”

The fury and betrayal did not leave his eyes, but his gaze sharpened on her slightly, therefore she continued, truthfully, “If you are not a member of the Holy Grail, it means that I do not have to kill you. It means that it isn’t wrong to love you because while you are no saint you're not a criminal and therefore I _can_ be in love with y–”

“Stop,” he interrupted her, his tone hollow. “If you say such things, it will make me want to kiss you, and I can’t. Not now.”

There was silence again, longer this time. Arturia waited, knowing that Gilgamesh still wasn’t done.

Slowly, he questioned her, his tone tightly controlled, “Why are you telling me all this, Arturia.”

He knew, as well as she did, that there was no point in telling him the truth. Not for the sake of the mission, not for anything.

“You were right, earlier,” he unexpectedly added, his tone again devoid of any emotions. “I should kill you.”

She did not reply for a long while, before looking directly at him, waiting to meet his gaze before speaking, and he felt strange at seeing how her eyes were suddenly full of pain. It was the same pain he had glimpsed many times before, only deeper now that she wasn’t attempting to mask it anymore.

“I’m telling you because I can’t do this anymore.” She swallowed, again. “I can’t hear you tell me that you love me when I’m not honest with you. I can’t sleep next to you, in your arms, _be_ with you while not telling you the truth.” A flash of something firmer crossed her features. “And I can’t tell you that I have feelings for you, _that I love you_ , not unless you know who I really am.”

Gilgamesh was silent once again, but Arturia could still see the anger boiling inside him.

Suddenly, his fist slammed on the small glass table between the couches, breaking it into pieces.

She did not move. She had expected him to react this violently long before, and didn’t show any outward reaction even as he stood up, glaring at her fiercely, his fury unmistakable.

…

…

She was an agent. She was a bloody _secret agent_.

She had never been a civilian training to become a policewoman.

She had never been the person he thought she was.

Of course he had _known_ that she could not be a civilian, he had known that there was something darker in her, that she had secrets, that there were parts of her past that she didn’t want to reveal to him – but he had never thought it could be something like this.

Now it all made sense.

How could he have missed the truth, when it had always been so glaringly _obvious?_

Rage still pulsed violently through him, and breaking the useless glass table did nothing to calm him down.

No one had ever been closer to him than her, except Enkidu, but Enkidu was long gone. He had trusted her, he had _fallen in love_ with her… and she had been a spy all along.

All. Along.

He had thought that Arturia was incapable of deception. Instead, she had _concealed_ her identity. She was not who he had thought her to be, and she had betrayed him. _The entire time_.

“You lied to me,” he snarled, glaring at her with all his might.

Her eyes had a strange flash.

“I deceived you,” she replied, the correction making his anger increase, but it seemed oddly important to her. “Except for my name, I did not lie to you.”

Oh, that made more sense, he supposed, his logic and reason breaking through the anger briefly. He had not detected any deceit in her because she had not lied outright; she had simply _avoided_ telling the truth.

It had been much more subtle and underhand – but she had indeed been deceitful and false, always keeping up a façade.

He took a step closer, eyes burning with hatred at the woman he loved, a scenario he had previously never thought possible.

“You played me for a fool, the entire time.”

Her eyes, which had never been able to lie, not once, flickered, and there it was, the pain again as she acknowledged the truth.

“I… did.”

He came even closer to her, and now Arturia stood up as well, taking a few steps away from him. She was tense and wary, he could tell, but he could also tell that she had expected this.

It only served to enrage him further.

“You used me,” he cuttingly growled, and she took another step back, finding herself against the wall.

He wasted no time in closing her in, but all she did was nod.

“I tried to.”

His eyes narrowed, not just at the truths she was admitting, but at the fact that she was not fighting back against his accusations, she was _taking_ his accusations without defending herself. His whole body pressed her against the wall now, and his fury invaded him again.

It had all been a lie.

While kissing him, while making love, while simply lying next to him… it had all been a _lie_.

She was caged between him and the wall, and his fingers flexed almost unconsciously.

He could kill her… he truly could. Oh, he _could_ , and it would be so easy.

He had felt the same sensation a few months before, when they had been in the car together, as he had threatened her life because she never thought of herself and never _cared_ about herself and her own safety.

And right now, it was the exact same situation. She did not try to free herself, even as his hot breath reached her skin, his eyes flashed at her in fury, his hands went around her neck, ready to squeeze the life out of her…

Yet he didn’t.

He waited.

Something flashed through her eyes as he kept at his silent threat.

To his surprise, with a sudden, swift move, she pushed him back, showing unexpected strength. She was fast, and she was deadly too.

Deadly. _Deadly_. He had read that word, recently, on a note he had received–

He could not concentrate on that thought any longer, because Arturia flipped out of his hold, spinning rapidly across the room as she freed herself. His eyes narrowed as other different emotions stirred through him, and he launched himself forward.

She may be a special agent or whatever, but he was _Archer_.

She had not expected him to react so quickly, and she found herself pinned against the wall again, both her wrists held above her head, his mouth ravenously kissing her, his sudden erection throbbing against her leg. She shivered hotly against him.

Arturia did not try to free her hands, knowing he was pushing his entire weight on them, but she did pull her lips free. This time, she stared straight at him.

“I don’t want to have angry sex with you,” she resolutely stated. Her emerald eyes were darkened, and he knew that she was already getting wet, but she did not waver in her decision, even though her hands were still incapacitated. “You are not a gentle man, Gilgamesh, but you aren’t a cruel one either. You will not force me like they did in my training.”

His eyes widened in slight shock, and he froze.

Her tone had been confident, firm, and steady. She _knew_ that he was not going to force himself on her. Even though she was as aroused as he was, even though she knew that he was furious enough to forget his reason, she refused to turn their ‘conversation’ – or rather, their fight – into mindless fucking.

It would have actually been easy, for their clothes were begging to be removed, and every complicated question that was starting to fill his mind now that his anger was fading could be forgotten, at least for the time being. But there was more to them than just finding carnal satisfaction.

He was swift in dismissing that entire line of thought, because something else caught his attention. He let go of her wrists.

“Were you trained to have sex with me?”

His voice sounded strange to his own ears, because he didn’t know if he actually wanted to know the answer to that, but Arturia shook her head.

“I was trained to have sex in general, years ago, long before this mission was even conceived,” she replied, her tone wry. “I told you – I didn’t have a choice.” Her eyes looked tormented. “I did _not_ lie to you.”

Her lips thinned, and then she continued, “At the beginning, when they gave me this mission, they told me that I was to seduce you. I told them… and myself… that I was never going to sleep with you. That I was going to try my best on the mission, but that I would never lower myself to use my body as a tool. And I kept to that resolution.” Her eyes flickered once again. “I wouldn’t have slept with you, had I not developed feelings for you.”

He stared at her, a long, searching look, without saying a word. Then he took a step back, allowing her to move away from the wall if she so wished. He turned his head away from her.

Arturia took a deep, shuddering breath, and reached for her bag quietly. She had to end this now, before it was too late. “I’m going to leave now.”

But to her surprise, his arm shot out and stopped her movements.

“I never said you could leave my house, Arturia.” His voice was pure ice, cutting through the air between them, and it was extremely focused at the same time. “Your bosses may have manipulated things, but _I_ invited you to stay, and I didn’t invite you leave. You may be done talking, but I am not. And I have still questions to ask you.”

She stared at him, dumbfounded.

His eyes sharpened. “Don’t think for _one second_ that I have forgotten my anger, and don’t think that we’re done here. But before I concentrate on my fury, you will answer some questions.”

She eyed him guardedly, and he came closer to her once again, fighting with himself to put his anger, and arousal, to the side for the moment. He had had an intuition just a few minutes before, and he needed to get the facts straight as soon as possible.

Even though, before that, he was going to shed light on a few other things.

“Just so you know, you are a pitiable agent,” he coldly stated. “Falling for your target and then confessing everything to him is the most foolish thing you could have done.”

She didn’t have a reaction at his words aside from nodding, indicating that she agreed with him.

“I know.”

“And just to make things clear, I stand by what I said.” His stare was imposing. “I won’t let you leave. You are _mine_.”

The tension spiked in the room again as she mulled over his words, clearly trying to decide how to take them, and he heaved a sigh, visibly holding back from rolling his eyes, before staring at her once more.

“Do you really think that finding out that you’re a pathetic excuse of an agent makes me love you any less, Arturia?”

Her eyes grew large and her heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t allow her to do or say anything, because he went on, reminding her that he meant to ask questions, “You are a high-ranked agent, yes?”

She merely nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“And your boss is a man named Kiritsugu?”

Her eyes narrowed, her whole body tensing as she stared at him in silent disbelief.

“How do you know that?” she finally asked.

He smirked. He had been right. In the message he had received, there was a hint about a deadly agent, on the orders of Kiritsugu of the special police force. It had turned out to be true, even though he could never have imagined the agent to be Arturia.

“Then I believe that you worked together with a woman named Natalia Kaminski.”

This time she controlled herself and her body didn’t tense up, but he could see her eyes staring at him with growing mistrust, even though she still gave him an answer.

“Yes. She trained me.”

The odd light in her eyes told him more than she was aware, and he was quick to realize what the training included.

“She forced you to have sex, you mean,” he deduced, and Arturia’s countenance appeared uncomfortable, even though just minimally. He took a step closer to her, and then gave her a contemplative look. “You probably don’t know that she’s dead.”

Shock crossed her features, before her eyes narrowed once again, and Gilgamesh almost smiled.

It was as if their earlier discussion and revelations had never taken place, as if everything was back to normal between them.

“How would you know such a thing? And how do you know about my boss?”

Brought back to their conversation, the smirk on his face became strange.

“Because I know that Kaminski woman – or rather, I know who she is.”

She stared back at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”

He quirked an eyebrow, looking mildly entertained, as if thinking of a joke.

“You mean to tell me that she never revealed to you that she was Assassin?”

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	8. My feelings alone are all that live, a wish that I brandish within my heart (Berserker, part 1)

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_About four or five years before_

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While he was collecting the information he needed on a foolish mongrel that was causing problems for his business, Gilgamesh was also busy fending off the unctuous propositions by the Holy Grail members. Among some of those fools, he had seen a silver-haired woman a few times, who seemed to have a strange fixation on him.

He wasn’t interested, therefore he did not deign her with his attention.

However, a few days later, when he had been leaving one of the secret gathering places at night with everything he needed – and having rejected Iskandar Macedonia’s offers once again – he heard some muffled sounds of a struggle coming from the vicinity.

The only reason why he approached was that he was bored, so he then turned a flashlight towards the sound rather suddenly.

He only had the time to recognize Assassin’s face, blinded by the light, when the person he had been struggling with took advantage of his distraction and produced a long knife, cutting through Assassin’s throat, pushing him off the cliff and into the sea.

Gilgamesh recognized the silver-haired woman as the perpetrator.

He was mildly impressed by her prowess in staying alive for so long, as he knew that Assassin was extremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Apparently, she was now the new Assassin, as he could see the strange, heavy cube that was its signature weapon lying on the grass.

Still disinterested, he made to leave. The fight was already over, there was nothing he cared about there.

However, the woman spoke.

“You didn’t do it intentionally, but you did save my life.”

He lifted an eyebrow as he turned his head to stare at her. He couldn’t care less.

“What of it?”

She went to pick up Assassin’s weapon, studying it with fascination, and then replied, undeterred by his tone, “Since you are part of the mafia, sooner or later the police force will send someone to stalk or kill you. If you don’t comply with them, however, the mafia will do the same. When _both_ will try to come after you, I will warn you.”

Gilgamesh laughed in her face. This was her idea of paying him back? All right, at least she was entertaining; therefore, he chose not to bother in correcting her mistaken assumption about him being part of the mafia.

She started to climb a leafless tree in the vicinity, ignoring his openly scornful laughter. “I’ve seen you kill one of Caster’s people for being disrespectful, so I know what you’re capable of. But a warning will be the price I pay for a convenient flashlight turned on at the right time that saved my life.”

He turned away from her, starting to leave, blatantly ignoring her, yet he stopped when he heard the smirk of superiority in her voice as she added, “When you’ll find someone who matters more to you than your own life, you will care a little more about a warning.”

Images of Enkidu flashed through his mind, and anger clouded his vision. The loss of his best friend was still an open wound.

“Don’t presume to know anything, fool.”

When he looked at her again, she had almost reached the top of the tree, and even in the darkness, he could see her smirk widely.

“It’s Natalia Kaminski, not ‘fool’,” she remarked. “I don’t give a damn about your life, and neither do you about mine. I do owe you a favour though, and I will repay it the way I want. You’ll receive a handwritten note as warning; if it isn’t followed immediately by a second one, it means that I was killed for it.” She seemed to observe him from the top of the tree, and then suddenly supplemented, “I know a person who is similar to you, or well, who has at least a similar stubbornness. If you two ever meet, it’s going to be interesting.”

She jumped, and it was then that Gilgamesh noticed a black, silent helicopter waiting for her in the air. Well, it looked like this Kaminski woman had resources.

As she disappeared in the dark, he shook his head. What a delusional person.

He did not expect anything to come of such an irrelevant meeting.

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_Present_

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Arturia was staring at him, her mouth almost hanging open in shock. Natalia was _what?_

Gilgamesh thoroughly enjoyed her expression, and his smirk widened.

“I met her some years ago, right as she was killing the former Assassin,” he informed her. “I can’t say she was particularly remarkable, but she claimed to owe me a favour after I accidentally saved her life, which she repaid a few weeks ago, by sending me a warning.” His crimson eyes seemed to weigh her. “I was cautioned against a special agent, working under Kiritsugu, who was going to be sent after me. Never would I have thought it to be you though.”

The look he gave her was chilling, and Arturia would have recoiled if she hadn’t been expecting it; therefore, she managed to keep her expression composed, even though the inner hurt wasn’t ignored as easily.

To avoid having to think about it, she put forth another question, knowing that it wasn’t likely for him to answer it truthfully, but at the very least it would produce a change in the stifling atmosphere.

“What does Natalia have to do with all this?”

He contemplated her with an unreadable gaze.

“It confirms that you didn’t lie.”

That comment stung, mostly because she hadn’t expected it. His hatred, yes; his dismissal, yes; his contempt, yes; but his complete rejection of everything she had told him, labelling her as a full liar… no.

She could not find any justifications though; she may not have expected him to doubt her word, but she shouldn’t have allowed that to make her die inside.

She knew that she should probably just leave. Regardless of what Natalia had to do with this mess – and regardless of the fact that there was indeed the possibility of her being dead – she could not bear to be at the receiving end of those frosty stares, no matter how much she knew she deserved them. She glanced at her large bag again.

Gilgamesh noticed where her eyes had landed, and his expression hardened.

“Were you not listening to me? Haven’t I told you, time and time again, Arturia? You’re _mine_ , and you’re not going anywhere. I will _not_ let you go.”

His eyes were glinting darkly, his whole countenance was a warning in itself. “I won’t deny that I currently hate you for what you did, however it’s not enough to make me wish for you to leave.” His voice was a low growl. “You. Are. Mine.”

Arturia’s eyes flashed, before turning strangely calculating.

“If I tried to kill you,” she began then slowly, “would you wish me gone?”

A feral grin appeared on his lips, and had she not been steeled by her years as an agent, Arturia would have trembled.

“That’s what you would like, wouldn’t you? You plan to provoke enough anger in me to make sure I push you away myself.” He let out a chuckle. “Not a bad plan, to be fair, for oh, I _do_ have anger. Finding out your secrets has inspired more ire than you can ever imagine.” His tone obtained an unidentifiable emotion, perhaps something akin to frustration. “Yet it’s not enough for me to wish you gone.”

She stared at him, incomprehension cracking through the mask she forced herself to keep as composure.

“You want me to stay,” she articulated, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. “You are angry, yet you want me to _stay_.”

He slammed his fist against the large wooden table in the middle of the room abruptly, and it cracked ominously.

“I hope you are aware that I haven’t downplayed it, and I’m _furious_ ,” he carefully told her, his voice a dark snarl. “You may not have lied, but you weren’t being honest either. You deceived me and tried to use me as a pawn. And you still told me everything, even though you _knew_ that I would hate you.”

Strangely, his open display of anger seemed to calm her. This was what she had expected; this was something she could deal with.

“I did,” she acknowledged without any inflection in her tone.

He shot her a blazing glare.

“You told me _anyway_.”

“I did,” she repeated, remaining on the same monochromatic note.

His fists clenched, and the exasperation became more and more apparent.

“It’s incomprehensible to me _how_ you could do such a thing, when it’s pure masochism.”

The reply to that was far too easy, and, if it hadn’t been heart-wrenching at the same time, Arturia would have actually given a weak smile to the irony of it.

Her words were a despicable cliché, but they were true.

“I did it because I love you.”

His gaze was on her again, more measured and calmer than before, and another dry chuckle left him.

“Then you’re nothing but a fool.”

Again, the reply was ludicrously easy, and it rolled off her tongue without effort.

“I know.”

“For heaven’s sake, Arturia!” His fist slammed against the table once more, and it cracked again, quaking dangerously. “Not even insults faze you at this point – where is your pride?”

She ignored his direct question, instead choosing to say, “They aren’t insults, they’re the _truth_.”

He rolled his eyes, his hand pushing on the damaged table slightly, bringing it closer and closer to its breaking point.

“That would be amusing, if every single action of yours didn’t make it clear that you wish you could take your words back.”

There was a slight hesitation in her expression, but she then shook her head firmly.

“I needed to tell you, as I couldn’t keep concealing the truth any longer, and I’m not taking anything back. I knew what the outcome would be, so I don’t wish to turn this back, for I deserve it. The only thing I do wish… is to turn back time to abort the mission as soon as I found out that you _weren’t_ my target. It would have been the smart choice.”

She bit her lip, self-disgust in her eyes as she finally admitted her weakness. “I should never have accepted this mission in the first place. I cannot manage emotional manipulation. I cannot _use_ you, as I should.”

“ _What_ makes you believe that you should?” he hissed, taking her aback, especially when she witnessed the sudden burst in fury in his expression again.

“I shouldn’t be in love with you,” she retorted, her tone intending to be sharp but failing miserably. “It isn’t part of my choices, it wasn’t an option for me. I chose to accept the mission. I chose to fake my identity. I chose to become close to you. But I _didn’t_ choose to fall in love with you. It’s out of my control, and it makes my possible options now much more complicated.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. “If I didn’t love you, I would have simply left without a word, maybe I would have apologized to you for hurting your feelings, but that would have been it. I would have been able to leave you behind without difficulties.” Her lips trembled almost imperceptibly. “But I do love you, and I can’t do this without breaking.”

She was absolutely pathetic, she felt it with every word she uttered, but she was now past caring. She had already destroyed her heart and herself as an agent, destroying herself as a person wasn’t going to worsen the damage that much.

“It’s always been easy to make my choices until now. What I wanted always aligned with my duty. Always. Now… now there are two different things I want, and I can’t have them both. Loving you and completing my mission are in conflict with each other.”

To her immense shock, Gilgamesh gave one last, powerful slam of his fist, and the table broke in half, collapsing on the floor.

“Goodness, Arturia – do you _relish_ in making things appear more complicated than they actually are?” He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “Of course you _can_ do both.”

Her expression contorted, anger and pain marring her features in equal measures.

“Has wrath clouded your mind to the point of insanity?” she almost spat, her voice cracking and giving away her anguish. She obviously thought he was mocking her.

Taking a deep breath, she attempted to collect herself again. “Gilgamesh.” She hadn’t said his name in a while, they both noted. “Even if you keep repeating that you don’t wish for me to leave your sight,” her tone made it clear that she didn’t believe him, “I still _must_ leave. I have a duty; I have to finish my mission.”

“So there _was_ another reason for telling me everything.” His tone turned several degrees colder. “You intend to leave either way.”

She stared straight at him.

“You hate me now,” she asserted, and he did not contradict her. “You may not want me to leave, but you _do_ hate me enough to wish for my death.”

He stared back at her, and the silence stretched between them.

“Perhaps,” he said at length. “Although not just any death. If you were to die, it shall be only at my hand.”

She lifted an eyebrow at this, but he went on, unperturbed, “You said you love me, and you claim you didn’t lie to me. You used _my_ love for you; if the situation was reversed, would you not demand the right to end my life yourself?”

Completely astonished, she almost gaped at him, never having considered such a thing.

Eventually, however, she gave him his same reply, a dry smile appearing on her lips. “Perhaps.”

She did not give herself the time to fully take in the curious change in his expression, which went from haughtily demanding to strangely satisfied, before continuing rapidly, “But the current predicament is of a different kind. I have duties to fulfil, and I have indulged myself in staying with you for far too long. If I stay _any_ longer, I will not find the will to leave left in me at all.”

She squared her shoulders after such an honest admission, her determination slowly returning. “I need to take down the Holy Grail, whatever the cost.”

His lips curled into a sardonic smile after he stared at her for a moment.

“You know, Arturia,” his voice was deceptively calm, “aside from the fact that in the past minutes you seem to have taken up the loathsome habit of not listening to what I say, I think you have forgotten to consider another very important thing.”

Completely disregarding the wrecked table – the second one destroyed in the room, she noted – he took a few steps forward, coming closer to her.

“I wouldn’t normally concern myself with whether or not the Holy Grail keeps existing, that is true,” he began again. “Nonetheless, they have threatened your life already, therefore I do have a reason for holding a severe grudge against them.”

He let her absorb that, before continuing, his warning deliberate, “Don’t expect me to care about your mission,” a smirk curled his lips, “but I will _not_ watch you leave me. You will not do such a thing. As, however, you _will_ continue with your mission whether I like it or not, it leaves me no choice but to come with you.”

After blinking at him a few times, she felt the inexpressible urge to laugh, even though she held it back. He was being absurd.

“That is completely ridiculous,” she finally replied, attempting to make him realize how nonsensical he was being. “I cannot show up at my boss’s with _you_ in tow.” Her voice came out slowly, as if she was trying to explain this to a child.

“Then _don’t_ go to your boss,” he casually pointed out, ignoring her comments. Not without a certain logic and very bluntly, he went on, “You don’t necessarily need someone to give you orders, especially if this someone burned down your apartment. Besides, it’s also rather likely that your fellow agents and your boss are dead.”

She glanced away uneasily, unable to break the silence for a while.

“As much as I find myself agreeing with you, I don’t have a choice about going back,” she eventually replied. “I don’t have any other leads on the Holy Grail.”

His expression turned strange at that, and she was unable to decipher what was going through his mind.

“What you mean to do is take out the people of the Holy Grail,” he stated, before seemingly immersing himself in his thoughts.

Then, unexpectedly, he gave her a shrewd look, his eyes glinting. “Truthfully, I have no knowledge regarding the real boss’s identity,” he said nonchalantly. “But, even though he isn’t the boss, I can still take you to Berserker – to meet _and_ kill him.”

Arturia stared at him, in absolute disbelief.

_What?_

He was offering _what?_

Then… he hadn’t been exaggerating?

“You… _truly_ … want to _help_ me? On this mission?”

Her tone was incredulous, her green eyes wide in astonishment. He seemed oddly inclined to shrug, but in the end opted for simply giving her a smirk.

“The sooner this _mission_ gets out of the way, the sooner I can have you to myself again. If you leave, Arturia,” his eyes were flashing dangerously, “you know perfectly well that you will never come back. Be it because of duty, or guilt, or even death, you will not return to me, and I would lose you forever. I _refuse_ to let that happen.”

His crimson eyes obtained a more sedated expression, and he glanced at the clock. “Therefore, tomorrow we can go to Berserker,” he concluded, his tone flat and uninterested, as if he was commenting on the weather for the following day.

She did not move from her position, suddenly uncertain. Was this a dismissal?

In that moment, there was the sound of the kitchen bell, which meant that their evening meal had just been delivered. Arturia kept staring at him, not knowing how to proceed.

He visibly sighed. “Are you not going to have dinner with me, Arturia?”

She eyed him warily, feeling too overwhelmed to speak. First he said he loved her, then admitted he hated her and even wished to kill her, then continued by telling that he wasn’t going to let her leave while calmly adding that he was going to accompany her to Berserker – one of the Holy Grail members – and now he wanted to have dinner with her. What was going on?

“Arturia.” She was snapped out of her thoughts, seeing him now stand in front of her and look at her carefully.

He seemed to consider the situation briefly, before deciding, unexpectedly, to slowly extend his hand towards her. “Come with me.”

Her eyes widened and her heart almost leapt in her throat at the now familiar sentence, and she almost gasped out loud. Did this mean…?

No. She made an effort to control herself. It didn’t mean _anything_. They were just going to have dinner together.

He could see her thoughts reflected on her face, as well as her hesitation, and he openly scoffed.

“We’re not done talking,” he harshly informed her. “I still have my anger, and you still have questions to answer. But first… dinner.”

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t hesitate any longer before taking his hand.

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Dinner was eerily silent, the only sound being that of the water depurator in the background, and that, added to very little eating and pointedly avoiding each other’s eyes, rendered the entire experience surreal – and extremely painful.

Sharing a meal with the person they loved shouldn’t have been so excruciating.

Once they stood up from the table, both at the same time, Gilgamesh seemed to still be completely serious about intending to talk more with her. She followed him almost numbly towards another living room – the previous one had after all two broken tables in it – feeling a stab of hurt with every step she took. Usually, when going around the house, he would keep much closer to her, occasionally touching her or brushing against her.

The distance between them now, however, was not just emotional.

It was therefore to her enormous bewilderment that once he found the sofa and sat down, he leaned forward – too suddenly for her to react as her instincts suggested for her to do – snatched her arm and tugged her body brusquely towards him.

Had it been anyone else, Arturia would have managed to spin out of the way, or take advantage of it to physically strike the offender; but this was Gilgamesh. Even though she knew that he still burned in hatred for her, she could not hate him back, and she did not feel the desire to defend herself against him.

That was why she stumbled forward, landing precisely into his waiting arms.

His hold around her was secure, firm, and she stared into his eyes, the distance between their faces minimal as her entire body was literally on him. Her astonishment must have made for a funny sight, because he smirked widely at her.

“Now, we have some talking to do,” he drawled out, his crimson eyes studying her expression intently.

Arturia stared back at him, acutely aware of his body against hers, and feeling extremely tense. She did not know what to make of this situation, and she knew that her green eyes were probably giving her thoughts away.

She chose her words with care, knowing that there was no need for her to speak too plainly, as her eyes would say everything else.

“You claim you hate me.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question, but it was close enough. She was asking him for an explanation for wanting to hold her so physically close to him after making it painfully clear that he felt brutal animosity towards her.

To her surprise, however, he didn’t release her, instead keeping them in this awkward position, and he even tilted his head to the side slightly.

“Loving you and hating you aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” he specified, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He examined her attentively, thinking about what she had asked. It irked him slightly that she couldn’t see how simple things actually were in his eyes. He loved her, he loved the person she was, and even though some of her traits annoyed him to no end, they were part of who she was, and he _loved_ her. What he hated was her deception, the fact that she had hidden her real identity from him. It was truly _simple_.

Not that he intended to lay it out for her so plainly. She _would_ figure it out on her own, he was fully confident of it; she wasn’t a fool, in spite of what he had called her just a short while before.

There were more important matters that he wanted to focus on.

“Tell me about your training,” he commanded.

Her expression and her body language did not change as she weighed his words, considering them carefully and ignoring the fact that it had been an order. She had not given in to his orders for the whole of their acquaintance, she certainly wasn’t about to start now.

“Why are you asking me this, Gilgamesh?” she questioned, but as soon as the words left her mouth, he saw a small wince appear on her face as realization dawned on her.

She tried and almost succeeded in hiding the change in her expression from him, before her face returned to being carefully blank; but she was too close to him to be able to deceive him.

“Ah, of course,” she then commented. “You don’t believe I told you the truth.”

He shrugged slightly, noncommittal.

“I want to know _how much_ of it was the truth,” he stated, seeming relaxed. “But perhaps knowing more about your training can indeed wait. First – did you truly grow up in foster care?”

That was an easy question, and a rather safe one. She nodded.

“I did. One of the families that took me in introduced me to judo and simple fencing, at first for fun and then to defend myself against bullies and the like.”

Thinking back on her past made another thought struck her. She had not been completely honest – she had not told him _everything_ yet.

She had not told him that she was Saber.

However – should she tell him? He had just made it clear that he doubted most of what she had confessed about herself, and since she did not have her katana anymore, it meant that she didn’t have anything to prove her status either. She believed there was no point in adding such a thing about herself.

Therefore she continued, “After finishing school, before starting to attend college, I was approached by one of the retired special agents from the capital, who had seen me during a local duelling competition. She offered me to join the task force in the secret services, to become a special agent; it was not going to hinder my studies, and… it was going to be beneficial. So I accepted.”

She paused, thinking back on how she had met the woman who had inspired her to start a career as an agent, Lady Jeanne. She wasn’t young anymore, and the many years she had spent in the task force had taken their toll on her, but she had still been a very sharp person and, most importantly, an inspiration. It was on her suggestion and gentle insistence that Arturia had ultimately decided to choose that path.

Gilgamesh however didn’t interrupt her, therefore she went on, “After some basic training and a few years spent in completing missions together with various other agents,” she didn’t add that she had become Saber then on her mission with Diarmuid – Lancer – as it wasn’t relevant, “I was transferred to Kiritsugu’s department, joining his squad.”

She shouldn’t have been telling him all this. She had never, ever, told anyone everything she had done, and being so open with him about her past felt uncomfortable and strange. Yet she didn’t feel the desire to stop, even though it would have been advisable to do so.

“You were trained differently there,” he gathered from her hesitation, with frightening accuracy.

She nodded, somewhat rigidly, and he put forth another question.

“What did they train you for?”

She shrugged lightly.

“Anything. Well, anything physical, at least.”

A shadow crossed his features, as he sharply deduced, “Including sex.”

Arturia stiffened uncomfortably, and could not stop herself from attempting to draw back a little, since she was still basically lying on him on the couch. He held her in an iron grip though and didn’t allow that, giving her no choice but to reply.

“Gilgamesh, you already know that. Why do you keep bringing up the subject? Merely because you know that I dislike talking about it?”

The accusation was clear, and he stared at her long and hard.

“You said they forced you,” he finally began, but she did not let him continue.

“It was part of the training we had to do while naked,” she pointed out reluctantly, and he raised an eyebrow, connecting the knowledge of that with the fact that she had repeatedly proven that she wasn’t ashamed of him seeing her body unclothed.

But it wasn’t enough to make him leave the matter be.

“What did they do?”

“ _Why_ do you want to know?” she exploded, pushing herself away from him and managing to break free from his hold, falling back on the other side of the couch, but he was swift in grabbing her ankles, not allowing her to get further away from him. “What’s it to you? What does it _matter?_ ”

He gave her a strange, measured stare.

“You did not consent.”

What kind of question _was_ that? Her reply escaped her before she could control herself.

“Indeed I did not.”

“Then wh–”

“Gilgamesh, just drop it.” Her voice had an unusual inflection as she looked away, but it was such a dangerously low one that he stopped before even formulating his question.

She took him aback when she then openly glared at him. “You seem to care more about the fact that I was trained for sex rather than about anything else from my past.”

She seemed almost offended that he cared so little about the fact that she was an agent – as if she had any room for being the offended party, he thought in a surge of irritation.

His fingers clenched around her ankles, pulling her body back towards his, and he then leaned forward to grasp her wrists abruptly.

“Everything you do, everything you told me,” he said at length, his face once again much closer to hers, “you being an agent, on a mission, following orders… it’s all in character with who you are.” He paused. “But the sexual training isn’t.”

She remained silent, even as he possessively tugged her closer still, his hands holding her more firmly.

“Everything you did, you made it clear that it was _by choice_ , and they were _your_ choices. Your studies, your work as an agent, the likely brutal training you endured, accepting this mission… you chose it all yourself. Even being with me, and then confessing the truth to me, was your choice, it was what you wanted.” His crimson eyes flashed. “Sexual training _wasn’t_.”

She stared back at him, not blinking even once for a strangely long period of time. She could see that he wasn’t going to let this go until she talked.

“Fine,” she said then, her tone void. “It was actually very simple. Two of the people I trained with held me down and showed me what it was like to reach the height of pleasure. Then I returned the questionable favour. That’s all.” Her eyes, which had been carefully emotionless until then, returned to life once again, and she glared. “Are you satisfied now?”

His tone was so low in his reply that it took her aback.

“I knew it,” he said, eyes clouded. “It’s guilt. The reason why you don’t wish to talk about it isn’t because of the embarrassment of it, but because you feel _guilty_ for having done the same to them.”

Arturia could not contradict that, and she swallowed. She felt incredibly vulnerable after having disclosed such a delicate part of her past, but she was even more mortified by the fact that he was completely accurate in his guess. She closed her eyes.

She was however forced to open them again when he violently yanked her forward, back into his arms and pressing her body harshly against his.

“Open your eyes, for you’re _not_ going to hide your thoughts from me,” he sternly hissed through gritted teeth. “And _stop_ feeling guilty. They forced you to have sex, and you did the same because they probably humiliated you enough to push you past a certain breaking point.”

His following words were the same she had told him not so long before, and the way he looked at her made something shiver inside her. “You’re not a _saint_ , but you’re not a criminal either.”

The next instant, he smashed his lips against hers, capturing her mouth in a deep, unexpected kiss.

Arturia yelped, or rather, she would have yelped if her mouth hadn’t been busy, therefore all that came out was a strangled moan against his mouth.

He smirked into the kiss, before pulling back.

“As much as you provoked my anger, I still want you to the point of distraction,” he declared unabashedly, making her cheeks turn a deep shade of red as she tried in vain to make sense of her surreal situation.

She scrambled to put some space between them, but he didn’t allow that, his arms going around her waist and keeping her close to him.

However, this time Arturia did not let him do as he pleased. She had already inflicted enough damage on her pride for most of the day, it was too battered to stand up again, but she was still an agent and had at least some dignity left.

With a swift move, her fingers grabbed his wrists, twisting his arms with a painful, vice-like grip, forcing him to release her instantly. Her body flexed almost unnaturally as she freed herself and landed back on the other side of the long couch, away from him and out of reach. The familiar motions, which had been part of her physical training, helped her gather her composure again and stare at him with a completely collected expression.

He wasn’t nearly as pleased, and fiercely glowered at her, distending his wrists and fighting to hold back a wince. She was much stronger than he had expected.

“You have been holding back until now,” he observed in a detached tone, examining his flesh, noting that there were probably going to be bruises. She had likely not meant to truly hurt him, but she had not held back all the same this time. “You must have been trained with extreme methods to achieve this flexibility and swiftness.”

He recalled her fast reflexes when she had prevented him from kissing her the first time, then later when she had shot the people at Rider’s, and also recalled her telling him that she had gotten rid of her own assailants.

He wondered, not for the first time, about the extent of her true capabilities.

She kept her eyes on him, checking his movements carefully, as if expecting him to retaliate in some way, but he didn’t seem interested in doing so.

“Natalia enjoyed choosing different training methods,” she acknowledged. Then her face scrunched up a bit, even though she still remained watchful. “She absolutely loved tying me to a chair and watching me try to get free.”

This sparked Gilgamesh’s interest and he pondered over the information, before asking out of the blue, “If I tied you to that chair, would you be able to free yourself?”

And he indicated an armchair on the other side of the room, while still staring at her intently. She returned his stare with a raised eyebrow, before nodding.

His lips, still slightly wet from the frantic kiss he had shared with her but moments before, stretched into a slow smirk.

“Prove it.”

She looked at him in shock. He couldn’t be serious–

His gleaming crimson eyes made it clear that he _was_ , and he stood up, walking out of the room only to come back with a rope a few seconds later.

Arturia hesitated. Was it wise to let him tie her to a chair just to prove that she was able to free herself? Not in the least, especially since it would mean having to trust him, and right now, she didn’t know if she could trust him. She loved him, yes, but after her confession that had clearly been a betrayal to him, she didn’t know if she could trust him anymore.

His eyes seemed to read her, because their light seemed to sparkle some more as he smirked widely.

“What, are you afraid, my love?”

She did not know what about his words made her spring into action, but she made her decision, no matter how foolish she knew it to be.

Taking a seat, she was mildly alarmed by the swiftness with which he passed the rope around her, tightly binding her to the chair, but she attempted to keep calm.

She could do this; it was exactly what she had trained for with Natalia, and she could take care of it the same way. She felt him tie the final knot and then take a few steps away, contemplating her.

She immediately located the main knots, starting to work on them. Natalia had used more complicated sailor knots, while Gilgamesh used simpler ones. Still, considering the number of times he had passed the long rope around her and the fact that he had used a thin yet very robust one, she believed that it was going to take her longer than she had anticipated.

She had however made a very dangerous assumption: she had expected Gilgamesh not to do anything but stare at her while she freed herself. But of course, that _wasn’t_ what he was going to do.

He sank to his knees in front of her, and found her face, fingers tracing her cheek and then her chin gently. She didn’t even realize that she had momentarily stopped working on the knots.

He leaned closer.

“My Arturia,” he whispered, and his lips pressed against hers, with uncharacteristic gentleness, in a chaste and respectful kiss.

Her eyes widened, even as she forced herself to focus back on her task; this was completely out of character for him.

His lips kept massaging hers, in a gesture full of nothing but _affection_. Arturia shivered, her mind on the verge of going blank.

Once he pulled back, she stared at him with eyes full of despair.

“Gilgamesh, _what_ are you doing?” was all she managed to whisper, her voice nearly cracking.

His face transformed as a full, ample smile distended his features.

“I tied you to this chair, putting you in a supposedly helpless position, because I’m still furious at you,” he simply told her. “And I kissed you gently because I love you.”

She swallowed, and blinked back the treacherous tears that attempted to gather into her eyes.

She was _ridiculous_ ; how could his words affect her like this?

But he was still next to her, commanding her attention once again.

“I love you, and you are _worthy_ of my love.” His lips were now nibbling at her ear. “Finding out who you are cannot change that.” His hands were one intent on caressing her cheek, the other going to free her hair, untangling her braids. “It doesn’t diminish your value in my eyes, no matter how much I can hate the fact that you deceived me.”

His arms were around her, ignoring the rope and holding her tight against him.

“You’re mine,” he whispered fiercely against her skin. “I love you, and you’re _mine_.”

He found her mouth again, the kiss deep, full of longing and incredibly passionate, leaving her gasping and breathing heavily.

But when he made to pull back, he was taken by surprise when her hands came free and she grabbed his shoulders in a strong grip. Sliding her body out of the mess made of ropes, Arturia pushed herself off the armchair with her feet, making Gilgamesh land on his back with her straddling him and pinning him down.

Her eyes were darkened, and by the fact that his were several shades darker as well, she knew that he _liked_ this development.

“You truly _have_ been holding back until now,” his voice came out in a low baritone, and she shivered uncontrollably, desire coursing through her.

“Not in my feelings, _never_ in my feelings,” she replied at length, her voice coming out as a pant.

She grabbed his collar, leaning forward, her now unbound hair cascading around her face. “And don’t forget,” her lips were hovering over his, “you’re _mine_ as much as I’m yours.”

She could not wait anymore and kissed him, devouring his mouth impatiently, her tongue entering swiftly and greedily finding itself in achingly familiar territory once again.

Before it could escalate, however, she abruptly pulled back. Getting herself to a sitting position, she withdrew herself from Gilgamesh’s body, offering him her hand. He grabbed it immediately and sat up as well, but remained on the floor, and then possessively passed an arm around her shoulders, not allowing her to escape his arms.

“In the end, I’m probably not going to kill you after all,” he casually stated, nuzzling her hair.

She stilled in his hold, although she did not try to free herself.

He kept enjoying touching her lightly, at least until she spoke again. She was not facing him, and there was something more raw in her voice now.

“When Rider kidnapped me,” she started slowly, “his men told me that I was a fool for being with you. They told me that you would have your fun with me, and then discard me. My bosses thought the same, and instructed me to ‘keep your interest’ for as long as possible. And after…” she paused briefly, “after I slept with you, I admit that I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had wanted me gone the next morning.” She paused again. “I wouldn’t have accepted it, but I expected it. Perhaps it would have made things easier.”

He scoffed at her words.

“You can be so foolish sometimes, Arturia, but I already told you as much.” She did not need to see him to know that he was rolling his eyes. “As if I’d _ever_ discard the woman I love.”

And his lips continued to nonchalantly press kisses into her hair.

“We should go to sleep soon,” he then added unexpectedly. “If we need to meet Berserker tomorrow, it’s best to rest now.”

He was surprised when her hand suddenly clamped down around his arm, and she gave him a stare filled with guarded anxiety.

“Tell me,” she brought out every word with obvious difficulty, “tell me the truth. I know that you are Archer, but please – I know you don’t owe me anything, but I still need to know the _truth_. You knew where to find Rider. You knew about Caster. You knew about Assassin. And now you know about Berserker’s location. Are you _truly_ not part of the Holy Grail?”

There was steel in her eyes, but there was also extreme unease. If the answer was not what she hoped, it meant that he was responsible for the worst crimes that had ever happened, and it meant… that she would have to kill him.

He held her gaze, completely calm.

“I am not, Arturia.”

There was no outward reaction in her, but he could tell that, inwardly, she was probably slumping in relief. Her lips almost tilted upwards in a smile, but then a new thought struck her, and her almost smile was gone.

Carefully, she then said, “I can imagine that you’d rather not have me in your bed tonight.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore. “As you won’t allow me to leave either, I’ll be taking the guest room.”

He stared at her for a while without talking, waiting in vain for her to look up, and then bluntly pointed out, “While I can’t say I want to be _intimate_ with you right now, I don’t want you away from me either. Don’t think you can escape me so easily, Arturia.”

She snapped her head up, confused, and he sighed deeply at how actually young and innocent she appeared to be with such an expression.

“I will not have sex with you, not right now, but I will not sleep separately from you,” he elaborated, planting a soft kiss on her cheek.

Then, taking her by surprise, he took her up in his arms as he stood up, and went to settle himself on the couch, holding her in his arms and between his legs from behind, so that her back was pressed against his chest and his arms were encircling her waist.

His fingers soon started to rub small circles on her skin, where he had pushed up her shirt slightly, while his mouth found her neck, leaving a few kisses and caressing her softly. He wasn’t touching her in a casual way, but was completely focused, intent at his task.

Arturia felt the overwhelming urge to return his gestures, to show the same affection herself, but she knew that if she did, she was not going to stop; therefore, she fought to control her desires.

She should have realized, however, that he was going to notice.

“Now you’re holding back again,” he noted, and his hold tightened slightly as she nodded slowly. “Why is that?”

Her fingertips brushed against his hands at her waist, and he could feel her trembling slightly.

“I can’t give in,” she whispered. “If I give in, I will not want to stop.”

His chuckle was low and dangerous, yet at the same time, it was inexplicably _kind_.

“Do you not see, Arturia? You have _already_ given in, and a long time ago.”

She shut her eyes, feeling shame beginning to fill her, because he was right, _again_.

“Temptation is always strong,” she acknowledged.

“This is more than simple temptation,” he replied, an entertained note in his tone, and she could see from the corner of her eye that he was shamelessly indicating himself. “I will not be reduced to just that.”

That almost brought a small smile to her lips, and she turned her head abruptly, finding his face right next to hers, staring at her, his crimson eyes ready to make her drown in their sharp intensity.

She kissed him, slowly, carefully, then deepening the touch even more carefully, while his hand sank into her locks, her own hand going to grab his shirt, but again very carefully.

When they separated, they just stared at each other.

“Why did I fall in love with you,” she suddenly burst out, her eyes closing in distress. “If I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have gone against my duty. I wouldn’t be a _traitor_ now.”

“Falling in love with me was inevitable.” His lips traced her forehead, going down her cheek in a trail of kisses. “Don’t insult your love by calling it a mistake, and don’t use it to justify your decision.”

“But it _is_ what influenced my decision,” she objected, feeling her frustration grow.

“It _isn’t_ ,” he growled. “You did not tell me the truth because you loved me, but because of _who you are_ , so don’t you _dare_ blame your love for me for your decision!”

She was rendered mute at that.

She stared at him again, her eyes containing so many flickering emotions that not even he was able to read them all, until she finally muttered, “I believe that sometimes, I might hate you too.”

Gilgamesh could not help it. At those words, he actually let out a warm laugh, and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers.

He held her gaze with a strange seriousness, and his tone dropped, becoming incredibly low and barely audible.

“I have lost Enkidu,” he whispered, his voice carrying a rare rawness, and he pulled her closer, possessively. “I will _not_ lose you as well.”

The foolish tears gathered in her eyes again, but this time, she let them fall, and given that he kissed her regardless of them, it was obvious that he did not care.

She decided she should not care either and, throwing away her guardedness, she finally allowed herself to fully kiss him back.

...

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...

…

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so, so much to MimiBlue for patiently editing this chapter :D
> 
> I have fun writing fanfics most of the time, and this chapter was probably my absolute favourite one to write for GilArt. It required a lot of effort as well though, which means that I need to take a break from this story. When I'll come back to this fic, it will be in order to conclude it, since there are just three (looooong) chapters left.  
> After To The Beginning, Magia is going to be my longest story, and since its genre is out of my comfort zone (much darker than what I usually do), I would like to sincerely thank everyone who decided to give it a chance and read until this point. I'm really grateful because this fic started out as something of an 'experiment', and I genuinely hope you will like its continuation ;)))  
> Thank you so much for reading!! :D


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